effects of social attention

Sometimes presence of others:

  • improves performance

  • worsens performance

social faciliation theory

  • arousal + dominant response principle

new findings for social attention:

  • yeah bruh we missed this section, go back to it after class

  • social attention increases public self-awareness

  • public self-awareness is seeing yourself as others might see you

    • leads to:

      • concern about reputation

      • fear of negative evaluation

      • increased impression management

Prosocial behavior:

Research shows:

  • people are more charitable in the presence of others

  • people cooperate more when evaluation is possible

  • reputation concerns drive helping behavior

relationship to bystander effect

  • we are less likely to help when others are present

  • why? diffusion of responsibility: we assume someone else will help

if evaluation is made clear: prosocial behavior increases

  • helping increases

  • reputation becomes relevant

social loafing

  • less effort in a group towarda. comon group

  • happen when..

    • effort isn’t identifiable (not very clear how much work each person does)

    • people rely on others to pick up the slack

    • more common in large group

cultural differences between social loafing: (western culture)

  • men (slightly more than women)

  • people high in individualism

why does social loafing happen?

  • social loafing is task-specific

it occurs when:

  • individual contributions are not identifiable

  • effort is pooled

  • responsibility is diffused

  • if individual performance is visible → social loafing decreases or disappears

free riding

  • reducing effort while still benefiting from the group’s success

happens when:

  • group shares success/failure

  • one strong member can ensure success

  • individual effort is not essential

2/20/26

  • deindividuation: effects of losing your own personal identity in a crowd, which makes you do things you typically wouldn’t do if you were alone

  • what increases it?

    • anonymity

    • diffusion of responsibility

    • arousal

    • sensory overload

    • novel/unstructured situations

    • alcohol or drugs

  • when accountability disappears, anti-normative responses increase

Classic Deindividuation Theory….

Look into Zimbardo Experiments

Zimbardo - anonymity leads to antisocial behavior

  • anonymity → antisocial behavior

meta analysis

  • anonymity + large groups + reduced self awareness

    • antisocial behavior

  • overall support for the classical theory was inconclusive

  • only very small effects were found

  • anonymity shifts identity from personal identity to social identity

groupthink: form of conformity