Analyzing Social Facilitation: 'Bring It On' and a Related Study

This essay explores the theory of social facilitation, using a clip from the movie 'Bring It On' as a fictional example and analyzing it against an empirical study. Social facilitation refers to the changes in a person’s performance when they perform in a group or in front of an audience. The analysis considers both the enhancing and inhibiting effects of an audience, as demonstrated in the movie clip where some cheerleading candidates perform poorly due to nervousness, while others excel. This aligns with the study 'The effect of mere presence on social facilitation: An unobtrusive test,' which suggests that the presence of others can enhance performance, but also that the feeling of being evaluated can cause anxiety and hinder performance. The essay concludes that the 'Bring It On' clip effectively illustrates both aspects of social facilitation, where the pressure of the audition impacts performance, but also allows some individuals to exceed their usual capabilities.

Social Facilitation: Boon or Curse
The objective of this paper is to explore the theory of social facilitation with regards
to a fiction example and analyze the same against a study conducted. The fiction example is a
small clip taken from the movie ‘Bring It On’, and in it, a group of cheerleaders is
auditioning different candidates who can join their cheerleaders group. Throughout the
audition process, we see various girls performing in front of the group. While some are very
confident, there are also cases where the candidate is extremely nervous and gives a poor
performance.
Social facilitation refers to the changes noticed in a person’s performance when they
perform in a group or front of an audience (Guerin, 2010). The performance or productivity
of a person is increased when he or she performs in the presence of others, compared to when
the same task is performed alone. However, another aspect of the theory presents that when a
person is being evaluated, the idea of being judged makes the performer nervous of anxious,
which in turn adversely impact the performance. (ScienceAid, 2019) While in some cases the
anxiousness can enhance the performance, in other cases it can also lead to poor exhibits.
Research on social facilitation has revealed a trend of behavioral impact through actual,
imaginary or implicit existence of people around while doing any task. However, the degree
of the impact made upon the participation is based upon the relationship existing between the
task done and the doer. Scholars have stated in a study that while performing along with co-
actors or in front of an audience enhanced the performance for some, but for others, it acted
as deterrence and led to declining the quality. (McKinney, Gatchel and Paulus, 1983)
In the study ‘The effect of mere presence on social facilitation: An unobtrusive test’,
forty-five undergraduates male were observed and timed while they dressed into familiar and
unfamiliar clothing. The results indicate that just the presence of others is adequate to
enhance the performance of a person. As indicated in the result, scholars have substantiated

the fact that the presence of others or the fact that one is being evaluated tends to make the
performer conscious and distract from the performance. (Markus, 1978)
The fiction clip presented contrasting effect of social facilitation process. In some
cases, it showed that performing in front of the cheerleaders made the candidates nervous and
they performed poorly. In one instance, a girl was unable to say anything beyond a few words
(YouTube, 2019, 0.44-1.00). However, in one particular case, the last girl performed
fantastically and went beyond her capability of a gymnast and outperformed even the
cheerleaders sitting in the jury ((YouTube, 2019, 4:10-5:17). The fiction clip correlates to the
study presented above and while it corroborates that the presence of others is adequate to
enhance the performance of a person, it also goes on to confirm one being evaluated tends to
make the performer conscious and distract from the performance. Since the contestants were
auditioning and being judged for getting selected in the cheerleader group, the candidates
were nervous and anxious about the same, which impacted their performance. However,
social facilitation principle reinstates that one also goes beyond their usual self and enhance
their productivity, and the same could be witnessed in the performance of the last girl being
judged and who was subsequently selected in the audition.

References
Guerin, B. (2010). Social facilitation. The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology, 1-2.
Markus, H. (1978). The effect of mere presence on social facilitation: An unobtrusive test.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 14(4), 389-397.
McKinney, M., Gatchel, R. and Paulus, P. (1983). The Effects of Audience Size on High and
Low Speech-Anxious Subjects During an Actual Speaking Task. Basic and Applied
Social Psychology, 4(1), pp.73-87.
ScienceAid. (2019). Social Facilitation: Drive Theory, Evaluation Apprehension, Distraction
Conflict - ScienceAid. [online] Available at:
https://scienceaid.net/psychology/social/facilitation.html [Accessed 16 Mar. 2019].
YouTube. (2019). Bring It On Cheerleading tryouts. [online] Available at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtFBqz-
4VyQ&index=1&list=PLGGd6wL1FevId4vmiNuWZwFzjc_Fxr-vU [Accessed 15
Mar. 2019].