Which concept describes the augmentation in behavior due to the presence of others?

• A. Social loafing
• B. Social facilitation
• C. Social inhibition
• D. Crowd behavior

Answer: (B)

Social facilitation is the augmentation in performance that occurs when others are present. When people watch or work alongside us, our arousal rises, which strengthens the dominant response we’re inclined to give. For easy or well-practiced tasks, the dominant response is usually correct, so performance improves in the presence of others. For harder, novel tasks, the dominant response may be flawed, leading to worse performance. This captures why the presence of others can boost behavior in some situations and not in others. The other terms describe different group effects: social loafing is when individuals put in less effort in a group, crowd behavior covers wide collective actions of large groups, and social inhibition is the opposite effect—performing worse in the presence of others, especially on challenging tasks.