A student is learning to juggle for the first time and attempts to practice in front of a large audience. According to Zajonc's arousal theory of social facilitation, what should happen to their performance?
AIt will improve, because social facilitation means audiences enhance performance
BIt will worsen, because the audience increases arousal, which strengthens the dominant response — which for a novice is making errors
CIt will be unchanged, because social facilitation only affects expert performers
DIt will improve, because evaluation apprehension motivates greater effort
Zajonc's theory predicts that audience presence increases arousal, which enhances the *dominant response* — the behavior most strongly associated with the task through practice. For a novice learning to juggle, the dominant response is the error (dropping the balls). Arousal amplifies errors, causing inhibition of performance. Social facilitation does not mean 'always better' — it predicts improvement only when the dominant response is correct, which requires mastery.
Question 2 Multiple Choice
What exactly is the 'dominant response' in Zajonc's theory, and why is it the key variable in predicting facilitation vs. inhibition?
AThe most recent behavior performed — whatever the person did last will be repeated under arousal
BThe behavior most strongly associated with the current stimulus through prior learning and practice
CThe response that requires the least cognitive effort regardless of practice level
DThe response that is physically dominant — the strongest or fastest available action
The dominant response is the one with the highest habit strength — the behavior that practice has made most automatic and likely for a given stimulus. Arousal increases the probability of emitting this response. For a skilled typist, the dominant response to a keyboard prompt is accurate typing — arousal helps. For a beginner, the dominant response is slow, error-prone typing — arousal hurts. The dominant response is not about effort or physical strength, but about what learning and repetition have made most probable.
Question 3 True / False
Social facilitation theory predicts that the presence of others will generally improve task performance.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: False
Social facilitation theory predicts that presence of others *exaggerates the current level of mastery*, not that it universally improves performance. For well-practiced, simple tasks, the dominant response is correct and performance improves. For novel or complex tasks, the dominant response is an error and performance deteriorates (social inhibition). The same mechanism — arousal strengthening the dominant response — produces opposite outcomes depending entirely on task mastery.
Question 4 True / False
Zajonc's cockroach maze experiments challenged the evaluation apprehension account of social facilitation, because cockroaches are unlikely to care about social judgment.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: True
Evaluation apprehension theory (Cottrell) claims social facilitation occurs because we are aroused by concern about being judged. If true, the presence of non-evaluating observers should produce no effect. Zajonc found that cockroaches ran simple mazes faster and complex mazes slower in the presence of other cockroaches — replicating the facilitation/inhibition pattern without any possibility of evaluation concern. This supports the 'mere presence' account: the physical presence of conspecifics alone, without any evaluative component, is sufficient to generate arousal and its downstream effects.
Question 5 Short Answer
Explain how Zajonc's arousal theory unifies the contradictory findings that the presence of others sometimes improves and sometimes worsens performance.
Think about your answer, then reveal below.
Model answer: Before Zajonc, social facilitation (improvement) and social inhibition (decrement) appeared to contradict each other, since both were caused by the presence of others. Zajonc unified them with a single mechanism: (1) presence of others increases physiological arousal; (2) arousal enhances the dominant response — the behavior made most probable by prior learning. When the task is well-practiced or simple, the dominant response is correct performance — arousal improves it. When the task is novel or complex, the dominant response is an error — arousal worsens performance. Same cause, opposite effects, depending on skill level relative to task difficulty.
The unification is elegant because it shows the two phenomena are not contradictions but two faces of the same process. The variable that determines which face appears is mastery — making 'how well-learned is this task?' the central diagnostic question for predicting audience effects.