Audience

Question 1

What is social facilitation

Answer 1

The positive influence on sports performance of others who may be watching or competing

Question 2

What is social inhibition

Answer 2

The negative influence on sports performance of others who may be watching or competing

Question 3

How does an audience affect performance

Answer 3

1) The presence of an audience increases arousal
2) Increases in arousal will trigger the dominant response
3) If a skill is well-learned, response will be correct
4) If the skill is new or poorly learned, the response will be incorrect

Question 4

What is evaluation apprehension

Answer 4

-Increased arousal levels which increases heart rate e.g a person trying out for cheerleading may feel a heightened sense of arousal leading to incompetence not just because others are around, but because of the fear that others are observing and ridiculing them

Question 5

Effects of social facilitation and social inhibition on performance

Answer 5

Home vs Away:-Teams more often win at home, maybe due to nature of audience
-However, Increased pressure at home
Personalities factors:-Type A perform worse in front of audience than Type B
-Extroverts perform better than introverts in front of a crowd
Types of skills:-Gross skills are helped by high arousal and so audience can facilitate performance
-Fine or complex skills are more desirable at lower levels of arousal, so an audience could inhibit performance
Levels of experience:- Good previous experiences increases social facilitation, bad previous experiences causes social inhibition
-Highly skilled performers are better in front of a crowd than beginners
Other influences:-The nature of crowd=hostile or noisy, a performer may feel more anxious

Question 6

Strategies to minimise social inhibition

Answer 6

-Imagery techniques to ‘Shut out’ the audience
-Relaxation techniques
-Training with an audience present
-Decreasing the importance of an event