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Effects of being observed on persistence at an insoluble task
Author(s) -
Geen Russell G.
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
british journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.855
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 2044-8309
pISSN - 0144-6665
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8309.1981.tb00534.x
Subject(s) - persistence (discontinuity) , psychology , task (project management) , social facilitation , facilitation , creativity , social psychology , developmental psychology , isolation (microbiology) , cognitive psychology , geotechnical engineering , management , microbiology and biotechnology , neuroscience , engineering , economics , biology
Sixty female subjects were given false information that they had done either well or poorly on a task purported to measure creativity, or were given no performance information. All subjects then worked on an insoluble task either alone or while being observed by the experimenter. Among subjects who had supposedly done well on the first task, persistence on the second was greater when they were observed than when they worked in isolation. Among subjects who had supposedly done poorly on the first task, persistence on the second task did not vary with observation or isolation. The results are explained in terms of a two‐process model of social facilitation/inhibition of performance following success and failure experiences.