levo

Sport and Exercise Psychology

How an audience can facilitate or inhibit sports performance

  • 3 things to know
  • Component 03

Overview

Recall questions on social facilitation and inhibition, Zajonc's four types of others and drive theory, why a crowd helps experts but hinders novices, tasks inhibited by audiences, evaluation apprehension, and the distraction-conflict explanation.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Key term

How does Zajonc's drive theory explain social facilitation?

Key term

Why does a crowd help an expert but hinder a novice?

Key term

Define social facilitation.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Define social facilitation.

    Model answer

    Social facilitation is the improvement in performance that occurs because other people are present, typically seen in experts performing simple, well-learned skills.

  2. 2

    Define social inhibition.

    Model answer

    Social inhibition is the deterioration in performance that occurs because other people are present, typically seen in novices and in complex skills that are not yet automatic.

  3. 3

    Name the four types of other people that Zajonc identified as affecting a performer.

    Model answer

    They are the passive audience, coactors performing the same task alongside, competitive coactors and social reinforcers such as coaches and officials.

  4. 4

    How does Zajonc's drive theory explain social facilitation?

    Model answer

    The mere presence of others raises arousal, and higher arousal makes the performer's dominant response more likely to appear, so performance improves if that dominant response is correct and worsens if it is not.

  5. 5

    Why does a crowd help an expert but hinder a novice?

    Model answer

    For an expert the dominant, best-learned response is the correct technique, so raised arousal brings it out, whereas for a novice the dominant response is still the incorrect one and raised arousal brings that out instead.

  6. 6

    What kinds of task are most likely to be inhibited by an audience?

    Model answer

    Complex, fine and newly learned skills that demand precision and decision-making are most vulnerable, whereas simple, gross and well-learned skills tend to be facilitated.

Other ways to work this

The same content, four other ways.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

1Closed book
2Open book
3Closed book

The 3-step method, run for you

Answer cold, learn it, then prove it stuck. Levo tracks the jump between your first attempt and your last.

Research Methods and Techniques
Planning and Conducting Research
Data Recording, Analysis and Presentation
Report Writing and Scientific Communication

Cram a whole paper in one sitting

Sort every topic into what you know and what you do not, then drill only the weak ones.

The tests are a old.
centurydecadeyear

Blank Blitz makes facts automatic

Rapid timed gap-fills on the terms and numbers you need to recall without thinking.

APunishment requires deprivation, loss of autonomy and stigma.
BReform requires trust, responsibility and self-respect.
CThe regime that achieves one tends to undermine the other.

Build It gets the exam shape right

Assemble a full-mark answer from its marking points, in the order an examiner wants them.

Range means the highest score minus the lowest score.
TrueFalse

Test It catches misconceptions

Spot the fault in a statement. The traps are the mistakes students actually make.

721941163128510

Brain Breaks between sessions

Short focus games to reset attention, so the next set lands better than the last.

Every question in Sport and Exercise Psychology, on a schedule.

Attempt a question from memory, write the correct version, then attempt it again. Levo records the jump between your first attempt and your last, and brings each question back on the day you are due to forget it.

Or £46 a year, about £3.83 a month. Cancel anytime.