SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

ASSIGNMENT – III

DRIVE THEORY
DISTRACTION – CONFLICT THEORY

SUBMITTED TO, SUBMITTED BY,

Dr. M. Vinoth Kumar, D.

Indhu Priya,

Assistant- professor, I M.Sc., Applied Psychology,

Department of Psychology, Department of Psychology,

Bharathiar University, Bharathiar University,

 Coimbatore. Coimbatore.

Social Facilitation:

 Allport (1924) first used the term social facilitation to describe ‘‘an increase in response merely
from the sight or sound of others making the same movement’’.
 Social facilitation is the improvement in an individual’s performance of a task that often occurs
when others are present. This effect tends to occur with tasks that are uncomplicated or have been
previously mastered through practice. (APA definition).
 Zajonc (1965) first hypothesized that new or poorly learned actions would be facilitated. For
example, an accomplished flute player would perform better with other people present, whereas a
poor or beginner flute player would do worse.

Drive theory of social facilitation:

⸙ In 1965, Zajonc published a classic theoretical statement, called drive theory which revived social
facilitation research. Zajonc set himself the task of explaining what determines whether social
presence facilitates or inhibits performance.
⸙ According to this theory, the presence of others increases arousal and increased arousal increases
our ability to perform dominant responses. If dominant responses are correct (such as when
people are highly skilled at the task in question), performance improves. If they are incorrect
(such as when people are not highly skilled), performance is weaker.
⸙ An interesting application of drive theory to social psychology is found in Robert Zajonc’s
explanation of the social facilitation effect, which suggests that when there is social presence,
people tend to perform simple tasks better and complex tasks worse than they would if they were
alone.
⸙ According to the drive theory of social facilitation (Zajonc, 1965), the presence of others, either
as an audience or co-actors, increases arousal and this, in turn, strengthens the tendency to
perform dominant responses. If these responses are correct, performance is improved; if they are
incorrect, performance is harmed.

If dominant responses Performance is

are correct in the enhanced
present situation

Presence of
Enhanced tendency to
others (either as Heightened arousal perform dominant
audience or as
responses
co-actors)

If dominant responses are Performance is

incorrect in the present impaired
situation
 ⸙ Zajonc (1965) stated that the mere presence of conspecific (member of the same species)
organisms produces increased drive.
⸙ He suggested that the mere presence of others was sufficient to increase drive, whereas others
argued that it was the evaluation and/or competition associated with the others produced the
drive.

Evaluation apprehension:

⸎ Other researchers thought that performance might sometimes be disrupted by the presence of an
audience because of apprehension about having their performance evaluated. This evaluation
apprehension idea was studied by Cottrell, Wack, Sekerak, and Rittle (1968).
⸎ Cottrell (1968) argued, “If coactions and performance before an audience usually result in
positive or negative outcomes for the individual then he will quickly come to anticipate these
outcomes when he co-acts with others or performs before an audience”.
⸎ Nickolas Cottrell (1972) proposed that the presence of others is a learned source of activation that
acquires its arousal potential by serving as a conditioned stimulus for anticipation of positive or
negative outcomes. In simple words, we get aroused because of our expectation about evaluation
by others and obviously this is due to the presence of others.
⸎ He proposed an evaluation apprehension model in which he argues that we quickly learn that the
social rewards and punishments (eg: approval and disapproval) we receive are based on others’
evaluations of us. Social presence thus produces an arousal (drive) based on evaluation
apprehension.

Distraction-conflict theory:

 Distraction-conflict theory points out that being distracted while we’re working on a task
creates attentional conflict. (Baron, 1986; Sanders, 1981).
 According to this theory, both audiences and cofactors (even their presence) can elevate drive
by provoking attentional conflict.
 According to Glenn Sanders (1981, 1983), the presence of others can drive us to distraction.
The argument is called distraction-conflict theory.
ᴥ They argue that people are a source of distraction, which produces cognitive conflict
between attending to the task and attending to the audience or co-actors.
ᴥ While distraction alone impairs task performance, attentional conflict also produces drive
that facilitates dominant responses.
ᴥ Together these processes impair the performance of difficult tasks and improve the
performance of easy tasks (because drive usually overcomes distraction).
 The presence of audience creates conflict between attending to the task and attending to the
audience; attentional conflict produces drive that has social facilitation effects. (Based on
Baron& Byrne, 1987)
 Tendency to
pay attention
to audience or
co-actors

Attention
Individual Presence of al conflict Social
Increased
performing audience or facilitation
arousal/ drive
a task co-actors effects

Tendency to pay
attention to task

REFERENCE

APA Dictionary of Psychology. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://dictionary.apa.org/social-facilitation

Baron, R. A., & Branscombe, N. R. (2012). Social Psychology. (13th ed.), 373-375. NJ: Pearson.

Vaughan, G. M., & Hogg, M. A. (2014). Social Psychology. (7th ed.), 249-252. NSW: Pearson. 

Baumeister, R. F., & Vohs, K. D. (2007). Encyclopedia of Social Psychology. (Vol. 1), 266. CA: Rolf A
Janke.
Mynhardt, J. C. Social Psychology. (3rd ed.), 115. Pearson.

Paulus, P. B. (1983). Basic Group Processes . 98. NY: Springer-Verlag.

Mullen, B., & Goethals, G. R. (1987). Theories of Group Behaviour. NY: Springer-Verlag.

Kassin, S., Fein, S., & Markus, H. R. (2011). Social Psychology. (8th ed.), 302-304. CA: Linda Schreiber.

Baron, R.S. (1986). Distraction-Conflict theory: Progress and Problems. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances
in Experimental Social Psychology (pp.1-7). UK: Academic press.

Williams, K. D., Harkins, S. G., & Karau, S. J. (2003). Social Performance. In M. A. Hogg & J. Cooper
(Eds.), The Sage Handbook of Social Psychology (pp 328-330). CA: Sage Publications.

Guerin, B. (2009). Social Facilitation. The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology. Retrieved from
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324419241_Social_Facilitation