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:
“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)
“Great abilites are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent. He has facts ready to his hand; so there is no exercise of invention. Imagination is not required in any degree; only about as much as is used in the lowest kinds of poetry. Some penetration, accuracy, and colouring, will fit a man for the task, if he can give the application which is necessary.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“We will not be imposed upon by this vast application of forces. We believe that most things will have to be accomplished still by the application called Industry. We are rather pleased, after all, to consider the small private, but both constant and accumulated, force which stands behind every spade in the field. This it is that makes the valleys shine, and the deserts really bloom.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)