Application
Social facilitation is a widespread phenomenon in society. As established above, social facilitation is the ability to excel on simple tasks and worse on complex tasks because of the presence of others. Many public tasks demonstrate the effects, both the costs and benefits, of social facilitation. From taking exams in a high school or college environment to performing in sporting events, people may perform better or fall short depending on the task’s complexity. In many experiments, people display signs of social facilitation even in every day tasks, such as driving - increasing ability when others are present. This effect can even be seen in animals, as displayed by Zajonc, Heingarter, and Herman’s aforementioned study on cockroaches. Businesses can even use social facilitation to their advantage, through placing their employees in evaluated, group situations for simple tasks. Students can also place themselves in group situations for simple tests to improve their performance, or conversely, sit farther away from other classmates on complex tasks.
Read more about this topic: Social Facilitation
Famous quotes containing the word application:
“My business is stanching blood and feeding fainting men; my post the open field between the bullet and the hospital. I sometimes discuss the application of a compress or a wisp of hay under a broken limb, but not the bearing and merits of a political movement. I make gruel—not speeches; I write letters home for wounded soldiers, not political addresses.”
—Clara Barton (1821–1912)
“Most people, no doubt, when they espouse human rights, make their own mental reservations about the proper application of the word “human.””
—Suzanne Lafollette (1893–1983)
“There are very few things impossible in themselves; and we do not want means to conquer difficulties so much as application and resolution in the use of means.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)