Testing social impact and self-attention predictions with live audiences and co-actors

Abstract

This experiment examined the influences of number of co-actors and audience size on manual dexterity task performance and subjective reactions such as perceived effort and arousal. Predictions derived from social impact theory and the self-attention perspective’s other-total ratio indicated that both number of co-actors and audience size should influence responses. Undergraduate students (N = 128) responded as 1, 2, 4, or 8 group members who were observed in counterbalanced fashion by 1, 2, 4, or 8 audience members for four performance trials. The predictions of increased task performance with larger audience sizes and decreased performance as number of co-actors increased were not supported. Participants’ rated arousal was somewhat consistent with the predictions from the self-attention perspective and social impact theory. Self-reported effort was consistent with the predicted patterns, but not always significantly so. The influence of number of others is moderated by the objective-subjective nature of responses of real co-actors performing in front of live audiences.