mteb/BrightProPsychologyRetrieval huggingface dataset:
Challenge and threat hypotheses  

The challenge and threat hypothesis states that people perform worse on
complex tasks and better on simple tasks when in the presence of others
because of the type of cardio-vascular response to the task. When performing a
simple task in the presence of others, people show a normal cardiovascular
response. However, when performing a complex task in the presence of others,
the cardiovascular response is similar to that of a person in a threatening
position. The normal cardiovascular response serves to improve performance,
but the threat-like cardiovascular response serves to impede performance.  [5]
Distraction-conflict Theory  

In his distraction-conflict theory, Robert Baron proposed that the level of
performance on a task is predicted by the amount of  distractions
 in the environment surrounding the task.
The theory states distraction can be a source of social facilitation on simple
tasks, as it can cause attentional conflict that can increase motivation which
increases the drive proposed by Zajonc. On more complex and difficult tasks,
however, the increase in drive is not enough to counteract the detrimental
effects of distraction and therefore results in impaired performance.
Distraction as the source of social facilitation is demonstrated in Stroop
task, a color and word association task. In Stroop task, participants are
shown a color name word, printed in different color and the participants job
is to provide the color of the word that the word is printed in. The reaction
time is slower and more errors arise when the word and color of the word does
not match. However, when the task is completed with other people, these errors
decrease. In these situations the presence of others may help by narrowing the
focus of attention.
Alertness hypothesis  

The alertness hypothesis says that people are uncertain of how observers will
act while in the presence of others, so they become more alert (because the
performer will be uncertain about how the observers will act in the
situation). It is this heightened alertness which causes them to perform
better on tasks.  [5]
Self-presentation Theory  

Self-presentation theory is another evaluation approach to social
facilitation. The theory posits that social facilitation is a product of
people's motivation to maintain positive self image or face in presence of
others. This motivation leads people to behave in ways to form good
impressions and therefore results in social facilitation in evaluative
situations. In situations that were non evaluative or less evaluative, social
facilitation effects were often eliminated. In addition, when individuals were
more confident, they performed better in evaluative situations in presence of
others as compared to working alone.
Attention approach  

In the 1980s, explanations shifted from activation theories to attention
theories, which imply that withdrawal from some things is necessary in order
to deal effectively with others. Attention theories that explain social
facilitation include the  distraction-conflict  hypothesis, the overload hypothesis, the feedback-loop
model, and the capacity model.  [5]
Capacity model  

The capacity model of social facilitation focuses on the role of types of
information processing on performance in front of an audience, rather than the
performance on different type of tasks (simple or complex) in front of an
audience. The capacity model suggests that for tasks that require automatic
information processing, the presence of others does not cause problems because
the short-term memory is not required for automatic information processing, so
performance quality increases. However, for tasks that require controlled
information processing, the presence of others does impede the level of
performance because the short-term memory is necessary to both focus attention
on the audience, as well as the task at hand.  [5]
In educational settings  

Groups are formed in a variety of educational settings around the world. Some
examples include a group of physics students completing a laboratory exercise,
a team of touch rugby players, a set of high school prefects, a group of
students formed to brainstorm ideas for energy saving techniques, and  study
groups  .

Some groups enhance members' motivation and help students stay focused on
their academic goals.  [34]  However, a study group may inhibit the
acquisition of new information, concepts, and skills, as the presence of
others can be distracting. These distractions can interfere during the early
phases of learning, both in overt and covert practicing. In a study in which
participants had to learn a list of words, they were too embarrassed to
rehearse the material out aloud and as a consequence of this group pressure,
their performance suffered.  [35]

Zajonc suggested that the student study alone, preferably in an isolated
cubicle, and arrange to write examinations surrounded by many other students,
on stage, and in the presence of a large audience. The results of the
examination would be beyond the student's wildest expectations, assuming that
the material had been thoroughly learned beforehand.  [8]
Animals  

Social facilitation in animals is when the performance of a behaviour by an
animal increases the probability of other animals also engaging in that
behaviour or increasing the intensity of the behaviour. In 1969, Zajonc,
Heingartner, and Herman demonstrated that social facilitation occurs not only
in humans, but also in species with limited or no cognitive processing. They
observed that it takes a cockroach a longer time to complete a complex maze in
the presence of other cockroaches than when alone. They also observed that in
a simple, straight runway, a cockroach reaches the end of the runway faster in
the presence of other cockroaches than when alone. This experiment lends
support to the theory that physiological arousal resulting from the presence
of others leads to similar social facilitation effects in animals as well.
[32]

In 2009, Dindo, Whiten, and de Waal studied the effect of social facilitation
in capuchin monkeys. The monkeys in this study were required to complete a new
foraging task, either alone or in a social group. While both sets of monkeys
completed the task, those in the social group completed it three times faster
than those monkeys that were alone. This increase in speed was attributed to
"observational learning and synchronization of behavior between group mates."
[33]
Evaluation Apprehension Theory  

In 1972, Nickolas Cottrell came up with Evaluation Apprehension Theory. This
theory also explains the evaluative pressure as the source of increased
productivity in presence of others rather than the arousal response identified
by Zajonc. The theory assumes that people learn from experience that the
source of most reward and punishments are other people they interact with.
Therefore, people associate social situations with evaluation and hence, feel
apprehensive in presence of other people. The evaluation apprehension improves
performance on simple tasks but is debilitating in more complex and difficult
tasks.
Evaluation approach  

In 1968, Henchy and Glass proposed the evaluation approach to social
facilitation.  [5]  Their  evaluation apprehension hypothesis
 states
that it is not the mere presence of others that increases individual
activation/arousal, but rather the fear of being evaluated by an audience.
They studied the reactivity of male high school and college students, where
their responses were based on the strength they developed through prior
training, and found that the groups who felt their performance was being
evaluated had more dominant responses than the groups who were simply in the
presence of an audience without being evaluated, or those that were alone.
[7]
Feedback-loop model  

The feedback-loop model postulates that when people feel they are being
observed, they focus attention on themselves. While in this state, individuals
become aware of the differences between their actual behavior and anticipated
behavior. So, by feedback-loop model, people do better in the presence of
others because of this increased awareness about their behavior.  [5]
Learned drive hypothesis  

A further extension of the evaluation approach is the learned drive
hypothesis, which was developed by Cottrell, Wack, Sekerak, and Rittle, and
states that activation only increases when actors feel that the audience is
capable of evaluating their performance. In other words, it implies that the
cause of evaluation apprehension comes from a learned audience. They studied
how a participant performed on well-learned tasks while in the presence of an
audience focused on another event, and in the presence of an audience focused
on the tasks being performed. They found that participants performing in the
latter group, with the audience that was focused on what the participants were
doing, largely gave dominant responses.  [16]

Weiss and Miller furthered developed the evaluation approach by hypothesizing
that activation only increases when the actors fear a negative evaluation.
[17]  This theory suggests that activation increases when the audience or
other competitors cause negative feelings, such as anxiety, in the actor.
However, Good's development of evaluation apprehension takes the opposite
approach, where he hypothesizes that activation increases when actors expect a
positive evaluation.  [17]

Because of the conflicting theories under the evaluation approach, there has
been controversy over its reliability. A meta-analysis done by Bond found that
even when individuals are in the presence of a non-visible or non-evaluative
audience, activation still occurs for an increase in dominant responses.  [6]
Age  

In 1898, Norman Triplett pioneered research on social facilitation by studying
the competitive nature of children. In this study, each child was given a
string and was told to wind it. He found that children performed much better
while they were competing with one another, and further research led Triplett
to theorize that the presence of others increases individuals' performances in
other noncompetitive situations as well.  [5]

In 1973, Chapman ran an experiment and found that levels of laughter among 7–8
year-old children were highest when two children listened to funny material
together (coaction condition). Furthermore, levels of laughter were higher
when one child listened to funny material in the presence of another child
(audience condition) than when one child listened to the funny material alone
(alone condition). These results indicate that laughter is also socially
facilitated.  [20]
Contributing factors  

Contributing factors to the audience effect could include what kind of crowd
is present, such as a supportive crowd (e.g., the crowd at a team's home
ground) or a hostile crowd (e.g., the crowd when a team is playing an away
game). Also, the proximity of the crowd or the size of the crowd could
influence the result of the audience effect. More factors such as nature of
the task, coping skills with potential negative effects of audience, and even
the playing venue (home or away) could be things to consider when examining
the audience effect.  [11]

Social facilitation is a widespread phenomenon in society. 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 everyday tasks, such as driving. This effect can even be
seen in animals, as displayed by Zajonc, Heingarter, and Herman's study on
cockroaches.  [32]

Business can also use social facilitation to their advantage, specifically in
online auctions, which takes into the account the emergence of instant
messaging and communication availability technologies. The interaction between
buyers and sellers in traditional, face-to-face markets creates phenomena such
as social facilitation, where the presence of others impacts behaviour and
performance. In the study involving Java-based Internet Dutch auction, the
findings indicated that social facilitation does indeed occur and participants
improve their results and stay longer in the auction under conditions of
higher virtual presence. Participants also indicate a preference for auction
arrangements with higher degrees of virtual presence.  [14]
Overload hypothesis  

The overload hypothesis works according to the distraction-conflict
hypothesis, saying that distracters do not lead to increased arousal, but
rather to  cognitive overload  (when an individual is bombarded with excessive information in
their working memory),  [18]  and while in cognitive overload, individuals
will do worse on complex tasks and better on more simple tasks.  [5]
Performance increases on simple tasks because the performers focus their
attention on the new stimuli, instead of the irrelevant stimuli that is
characteristic of simple tasks. Performance decreases on complex tasks because
the performers focus on the distracters, but also need to focus on the
relevant stimuli that are characteristic of complex tasks, and they cannot
handle all of the information they are being presented with.  [5]
Fantasy sports  

While the concept of BIRGing has been connected to sports fandom for decades,
the phenomena in  fantasy sports  has
only been studied in recent years. A 2014 study discovered that  fantasy
football  "Fantasy football
\(gridiron\)") players had similar social-psychological reactions to fans of
traditional teams.  [18]  Due to the nature of fantasy football being a more
involved fan experience, these effects have even been found to be heightened.
Because they feel more responsible for wins and losses: they are more likely
to engage in discussion or football media if their fantasy team wins, and less
likely to do so if their team loses.  [ _ citation needed
 _ ]
Major theoretical approaches  

Although Cialdini's studies introduced the concept of BIRGing to the public
and its relevance to  social psychology  , an operational definition is quite difficult to form. With such
a wide range of possible examples, there is no set criteria by which to
clearly recognize BIRGing. Rather, by a classical definition, it is more
described as a subjective feeling possessed by one individual who seeks to
gain acceptance or respect by associating themselves with the successes of
others. However, over recent years, advances in technology (among other
domains) have challenged the classic definition of BIRGing. For example, when
 Apple Computers  became very
successful, many individuals not only purchased Apple products, but many more
sought jobs or other associations with the company.  [14]  Contemporary
BIRGing in today's world can be seen by individuals not only associating
themselves with the success of other people or groups, as was originally
thought by  Cialdini  and others,
but also with companies, businesses, or activities that are perceived as
popular or highly regarded.

 Facebook  ,  Twitter 
, and other  social networking 
sites have increased BIRGing with popular brands, as it allows everyone to
post their affinity for or their associations with popular companies, media,
businesses, etc. Furthermore, the ability for everyone to follow their
favorite athletes, actors, etc. on  Facebook  or
 Twitter  allows for a closer connection to and
knowledge of these celebrities, therefore leading to more BIRGing. Thus, the
spread of technology has not only increased the realms under which BIRGing may
fall, but also increased the ease with which individuals may partake in
BIRGing.  [15]

Psychological approaches to BIRGing would include  Ludwig Lewisohn
 's behavioral approach,  Charles
Darwin  's evolutionary approach, and
to some extent even  Sigmund Freud  's
 psychodynamic  approach.
The behavioral approach is relevant to BIRGing as it analyzes the behavior and
success of others. If one partakes in observing this behavior, they can learn
which actions and people are successful or popular and can then engage in
BIRGing by associating themselves with these actions or people. Darwin's
evolutionary approach can also be used to analyze BIRGing due to the idea
behind  survival of the fittest  . In contemporary psychology, survival of the fittest applies to
achieving the greatest successes possible in order to ensure the passage of
one's genes into future generations. From this biological perspective, it is
favorable to be popular and respected, as more mating opportunities will
present themselves. This can be seen in BIRGing as individuals associate
themselves with popular, attractive, or respected actions and people in order
to be perceived as having more successes. Freud's psychodynamic theory can be
applied to BIRGing in terms of the  super ego 
's relationship to the [ ego ](/wiki/Id,_ego_and_super-ego