What is the theory of social facilitation?

Social facilitation theory suggests that people perform certain tasks more efficiently and effectively when they’re around other people. Research has identified two main types of social facilitation:

• The coaction effect: Competition drives this type of social facilitation. Essentially, working alongside others makes people feel competitive, so they strive to perform faster and better than their peers. You can witness this concept even when no real competition exists.
• The audience effect: This form of social facilitation takes place when someone is working independently, but a manager is supervising or overseeing their work. This arrangement inspires some employees to work harder, while others become uncomfortable, insecure or anxious.

Social facilitation theory literature has suggested several additional explanations for this workplace relationship model. These explanations include:

• Evaluation apprehension theory: Social facilitation requires another person’s presence and an evaluation by that person.
• Alertness hypothesis: People feel more alert in the presence of others, and this elevated alertness enhances their task performance.
• Activation theory: This is the idea that physiological arousal improves an individual’s performance when they are in the presence of others.
• Capacity model: People perform better on tasks that require less working memory, while they tend to take longer on tasks that require more working memory.
• Feedback loop model: Individuals pay more attention to what they’re doing when other people are watching, which leads them to make changes them improve their performance.
• Social orientation model: People who do well in social situations tend to do better with an audience, while socially anxious people do not.

The history of social facilitation theory

The psychological theory of social facilitation is anything but new; it first appeared in The American Journal of Psychology in 1898 as a study by researcher Norman Triplett. He was inspired to study this theory when he noticed that cyclists work harder to beat other racers than they do when they’re only trying to beat their own times. In subsequent research with children, Triplett found that about half of them demonstrated social facilitation when completing a task in the presence of peers, while a quarter of the children showed no change in performance, and a quarter of them displayed reduced performance.

Since Triplett’s initial studies, researchers have identified three factors that influence social facilitation:

• Affective factors, including self-presentation and anxiety
• Cognitive factors, including distraction and attention
• Physiological factors, which refer to the physical changes that help people perform tasks more quickly

Social facilitation relates closely to another psychological theory called the Yerkes-Dawson law. This idea correlates variance in task performance with how familiar the person is with the task in question as well as with the complexity of the task.

Social facilitation vs. social inhibition

Social inhibition is the inverse effect demonstrated by social facilitation. Some individuals tend to perform tasks more slowly or poorly when surrounded by other people.

Several factors influence a person’s response to observation, most of which have to do with their familiarity with the task. If it’s a relatively easy task or one they know well, social facilitation is usually the response. On the other hand, social inhibition is more common when someone is performing tasks that are more complex or foreign to them.

How to apply social facilitation in the workplace

To successfully implement social facilitation in a working environment, follow these steps:

1. Evaluate the type of task and the person performing it

If your team is performing a complex or unfamiliar task, their needs differ from those that arise from simple or well-known tasks. Because of this, you need to approach social facilitation on a task-by-task basis, assessing the situation and then adjusting your environment and involvement depending on the needs of your employees.

2. Provide an appropriate environment

Once you’ve evaluated the unique situation and employees, you need to customize the environment to foster their performance. For complex tasks, you can eliminate unnecessary and unwelcome pressure by:

• Getting rid of or minimizing time constraints
• Reducing environmental distractions
• Providing privacy and physical space

As a result, you give your team the opportunity and freedom to learn something new and develop their skill set. If your team is working on something that’s fairly easy, you can introduce social facilitation by centralizing their location and combining team members who are working on the same task.

3. Decide whether an audience would be beneficial or harmful

It’s important to limit the access of others when there’s a risk of social inhibition due to a task’s difficulty, but the opposite is true for simple assignments. You can encourage social facilitation by:

• Being present throughout the task
• Inviting other supervisors to watch your team
• Encouraging observation from other departments and teams

Related: Best Practices for Creative Work Environments

Examples of social facilitation in the workplace

Here are some social facilitation examples in a work setting:

• Sales associates working in an open office environment have an audience to witness their sales, creating a competitive atmosphere. As a result, their sales numbers are more impressive than when the company had all its sales associates separated in private offices.
• A team of creatives brainstorms together to come up with an advertising campaign and tagline. Because they’re surrounded by others, their ideas are more innovative and complex than if they had worked on the project separately. They can seek inspiration from one another and build on the team’s suggestions.
• A task tracker set up in the office ranks employees based on the quality and quantity of their work each week. Because both their own and their coworkers’ performances are on display for others to see, they work harder to increase their numbers.

Frequently asked questions about social facilitation

These are the answers to the most common questions employers ask about social facilitation.

What is social facilitation, and why does it occur?

Social facilitation describes the tendency of many people to perform better under the observation of others. Researchers think this phenomenon occurs because employees want to outpace their peers, creating a competitive environment that inspires achievement.

How does social facilitation relate to social loafing?

Social loafing occurs when an individual takes on less work in a group setting than when working independently. In essence, instead of the increased productivity seen with social facilitation, one or more team members reduce their output, putting pressure on others to pick up the slack.

What are the benefits of social facilitation?

When social facilitation is effective, business owners and managers often notice increased productivity. This model of workplace relationships can also build trust and solidarity among your staff, improve employee satisfaction and engagement, and reduce retention of talented employees.