this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2025
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One of the older social psych frameworks called Social Facilitation says that when we feel watched by others, how comfortable we are with the task determines if we improve or get worse. I'm of course simplifying for Lemmy but you can look to that framework easily.
They tested it with shoe tying vs putting on lab gear, measuring time to finish in the presence of others. Shoe tying got faster while lab gear, being unfamiliar, was slower.
I often give a more modern but dated example as when I play Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2, I tend to choke, because it's not really my genre, but of the same era I tend to show off and do better if I'm playing Metal Gear Solid 2, except the skateboard level of course.
Edit: hell, the Wikipedia article is even pretty good at describing it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_facilitation
I've never read through the wikipedia article, and wanted to see if it mentioned my favorite fact: cockroaches perform better when observed by other cockroaches. IT DID! So cool!
...
and then it said the classical psychology mood killer: no evidence found when the experiment was replicated.
Look, you could give me a multi-million dollar grant and I will wouldn't want to work with cockroaches, lol. (But then again, that's what grad students are for...)
For me, that's the case with basically every animal, buuuuuuuuut... That's what gloves and secure containers are for in lab work. I am going to bet they never had those roaches 'free' at any time. Having them in one secure container that is then attached to another and a panel between them removed would work fine with me.