Social facilitation

Social facilitation is a term within social psychology, traditionally seen to be the tendency for people to be aroused into better performance of simple tasks (or tasks at which we are expert) when under the eye of others rather than while they are alone. Complex tasks (or tasks at which we are not skilled) are often performed in an inferior manner in such situations however. Social facilitation has been redefined as the increased likelyhood of the individual performing already likely tasks when in the company of others. This affect has been shown to be strongest among those who are most concerned about the opinions of others, and when the individual is being watched by someone they do not know, and/or cannot see well.

Social loafing is the tendancy of individuals to slack when work is pooled and individual performance is not being evaluated. A good example of social facilitation is a foot race (where the individual runs faster when not alone) as opposed to a group tug-of-war (where the work is pooled, and an individuals lack of performance is hard to notice).