Facilitacion social robert zajonc biography

When our favorite guests came over to visit us, we displayed all our talents, even unsolicited. This behavior was in complete contrast to our behavior otherwise when we were home as family. Our parents always wondered what possessed us when we were with people. We may not be the same now, but that instinct remains that we turn gregarious when in company of friends and acquaintances.

People who are otherwise merry and cheerful suddenly go into a shell in the presence of others, especially unknown people. It is so fascinating to see this type of human behavior. Human behavior patterns have always intrigued social scientists. Robert Boleslaw Zajonc, a Polish by birth social scientist, did not have a normal childhood.

Born and raised in Poland, he lost his parents to air raids and miraculously escaped with injuries. He studied underground mode and escaped multiple times, only to resume studies. He migrated to the US after the world war and sought admission at the University of Michigan for a psychology course. He went on to pursue a long four-decade career at the University teaching Psychology.

His major works though many, what stands apart is the social facilitation theory, or the Zajonc theory of social facilitation. This theory postulates that people perform differently when in company of other people. Which means that the presence of an audience impacts the performance of an individual than when he would be doing the same thing when alone.

For example, a weightlifter lifts more weights when there are people around. However, it is also seen that the enhanced quality of performance is seen in well-rehearsed tasks and it slides down in new and complex tasks. So, it means that our social influence, i. This sparked a whole new avenue of research in social interaction psychology which is a favorite topic even today.

Competition was the key factor, clubbed with other factors as well, namely:. No wonder companies the world over highlight the importance of teamwork. Wikidata item. Polish-American social psychologist. Stanford, California , U. Biography [ edit ]. Early life [ edit ]. Career [ edit ]. Personal life and death [ edit ]. Contributions [ edit ].

Mere-exposure effect [ edit ]. Main article: Mere-exposure effect. Social facilitation [ edit ]. Preferences need no inferences [ edit ]. Affective neuroscience hypothesis [ edit ]. Hypothalamic cooling in rats [ edit ]. Confluence model [ edit ]. Awards [ edit ]. Further reading [ edit ]. See also [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. Zajonc — ".

American Psychologist. ISSN X. October 12, Emotion Review. ISSN PMC PMID Review of General Psychology. S2CID The New York Times. Retrieved Current Directions in Psychological Science. Social facilitation and imitation in group risk-taking. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 6 1 , Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 12 2 , December Motivation and Emotion.

Psychological Bulletin. Hypothalamic cooling elicits eating: Differential effects on motivation and pleasure. Psychological Science, 2 3 , ISBN September 1, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. History Philosophy Portal Psychologist. Animal testing Archival research Behavior epigenetics Case study Content analysis Experiments Human subject research Interviews Neuroimaging Observation Psychophysics Qualitative research Quantitative research Self-report inventory Statistical surveys.

Watson Clark L. This is supported by the Yerkes-Dodson theory of optimal arousal. A dominant response is simply the response that is most likely to occur in the presence of the given array of stimuli. If a task is easy for the person, then the dominant response will be the correct one i. In a difficult task, the dominant response is the incorrect one s i.

Social facilitation has several implications for understanding behavior in group settings and structuring group tasks. Here are some of the key implications:. Baron, R. Distraction-conflict theory: Progress and problems. In Advances in experimental social psychology Vol. Academic Press. Chen, S. The leaders and followers among the ants in nest-building.

Physiological Zoology , 10 4 , Cottrell, N. Social facilitation of dominant responses by the presence of an audience and the mere presence of others. Journal of personality and social psychology , 9 3 , Dashiell, J. Experimental studies of the influence of social situations on the behavior of individual human adults. Pessin, J. The comparative effects of social and mechanical stimulation on memorizing.

Facilitacion social robert zajonc biography

The American Journal of Psychology , 45 2 , Social facilitation of eating behavior in armadillos. Psychological Reports , 20 3c , Travis, L. The effect of a small audience upon eye-hand coordination. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology , 20 2 ,