Task performance and perceptions of anxiety: averaging and summation in an evaluative setting

Area of Science:

• Social Psychology
• Cognitive Psychology
• Human Behavior

Background:

• Stage fright involves perceptions of anxiety and performance.
• Existing theories like social impact theory and social facilitation do not fully explain reactions to audience size.
• Individuals' responses to groups may differ from how trait information is averaged.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between audience perception and stage fright.
• To propose a novel averaging-summation model for understanding audience impact.
• To explain paradoxical findings where adding audience members alters anxiety levels.

Main Methods:

• The study likely involved experimental manipulation of audience composition and evaluative presence.
• Participants' anxiety and performance perceptions were measured under different audience conditions.
• Data analysis focused on identifying patterns in anxiety responses related to audience size and evaluation.

Main Results:

• Adding an evaluative audience member sometimes decreased anxiety, while other times it increased anxiety.
• These findings challenge traditional social impact and social facilitation theories.
• A new averaging-summation model was developed to account for the observed results.

Conclusions:

• Individuals' stage fright is influenced by a dual process of averaging and summing audience impact.
• The proposed model offers a more nuanced understanding of social influence on performance anxiety.
• This research has implications for crowding, stress, social influence, and affective responses.