I'm a reasonable tennis player. I've noticed, if someone's watching (especially an attractive girl), my effort and concentration seems to increase. Sometimes this results in me playing out of my skin and hitting shots I didn't even know I could make! Same with snooker, at which I'm distinctly average. If someone's watching, I've often knocked in a pot from 3 meters away, but in practice, it's a shot I'd make 1 out of 50 times. Strange!
When There’s an Audience, People’s Performance Improves
41–47 of 47 posts
Re: When There’s an Audience, People’s Performance Improves
#42Interesting results, though I do wonder if this may be one of those situations where the results depend significantly on the individual and their personality. Don't like to use anecdotes, but still... I'm definitely someone who has a breakdown whenever having to do something with the possibility of an audience, let alone a live one. Fine doing something off camera, completely screw up whenever a capture card or camer…
The results could also depend on the circumstances of having an audience. I would not expect the same processes to govern: 1) Me performing music at a professional level in front of an audience; and 2) having a manager watch over my shoulder while I make mistakes.
Re: When There’s an Audience, People’s Performance Improves
#43On the one hand, writing code on a white board in an interview should be easier, because I have an audience.
On the other hand, I don't normally write code on a white board and I rely on the IDE to correct my syntax (and other) mistakes. So white board coding is a more complex task than my normal coding. So white board coding is harder and I do it more poorly.
On the other hand, if nothing is at stake, if it's just a friendly discussion about how to do something, among friends, I'm less nervous and it's more fun.
But if a potential job is on the line and I'm in front of strangers, it's more stressful and my performance suffers.
I don't know. What's the biggest effect?
Re: When There’s an Audience, People’s Performance Improves
#44Reminds me of this (awesome) song..
https://youtube.com/watch?v=SoCn9HBvlJM
I can't play 'cause I need a reason
No one here that I aim to pleasin'
There's a joint next door and I hate to barge in
But I play better with girls watchin'
Re: When There’s an Audience, People’s Performance Improves
#45The research on this is not new, and it’s not as simple as this. If you give people a task that’s well-rehearsed for them, that they’re good at, they’ll tend to do better. But if you give them something less well-rehearsed, something that’s “hard,” they do worse. I wish I had my psychology textbooks on hand for the references, but a lot of this stuff isn’t obvious until after-the-fact.
The full name is the "Yerkes-Dodson Law of Social Facilitation." It's this idea that a task requires an optimal amount of nervous system arousal. Too much and you get jittery, too little and you get lethargic. So it looks like an inverted U with the optimal performance at a middle level of arousal. Although you're right it's more complicated. If you're an expert at a task, then you do better if you have increased aro…
The highest pressure situation I was in was for fed gov approaching deadlines having missed milestones. The more pressure the put on, the calmer and more relaxed I became. Everything worked out fine in the end because the managers didn't understand investing in developing a framework. When that was done all the apps came together, more or less with outliers needing more exceptional additions.
Re: When There’s an Audience, People’s Performance Improves
#46On guitar, it's only if I practiced first :D otherwise it seems to have the opposite effect
I think I bombed the first 10 times I was on stage.
On a semi-related note... I started a new instrument this year... I've been taking a video every week. My first video is absolutely hilarious. This method is really encouraging, it's really easy to see progress
Re: When There’s an Audience, People’s Performance Improves
#47Interesting results, though I do wonder if this may be one of those situations where the results depend significantly on the individual and their personality. Don't like to use anecdotes, but still... I'm definitely someone who has a breakdown whenever having to do something with the possibility of an audience, let alone a live one. Fine doing something off camera, completely screw up whenever a capture card or camer…
There’s actually a gene associated with this very thing.
How in the world did this get downvoted?