title: The combination of perception of other individuals and exogenous manipulation of arousal enhances social facilitation as an aftereffect: re-examination of Zajonc's drive theory.
abstract: Zajonc's drive theory postulates that arousal enhanced through the perception of the presence of other individuals plays a crucial role in social facilitation (Zajonc, 1965). Here, we conducted two experiments to examine whether the elevation of arousal through a stepping exercise performed in front of others as an exogenous factor causes social facilitation of a cognitive task in a condition where the presence of others does not elevate the arousal level. In the main experiment, as an "aftereffect of social stimulus," we manipulated the presence or absence of others and arousal enhancement before participants conducted the primary cognitive task. The results showed that the strongest social facilitation was induced by the combination of the perception of others and arousal enhancement. In a supplementary experiment, we manipulated these factors by adding the presence of another person during the task. The results showed that the effect of the presence of the other during the primary task is enough on its own to produce facilitation of task performance regardless of the arousal enhancement as an aftereffect of social stimulus. Our study therefore extends the framework of Zajonc's drive theory in that the combination of the perception of others and enhanced arousal as an "aftereffect" was found to induce social facilitation especially when participants did not experience the presence of others while conducting the primary task.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Meiji Gakuin University , Minato-ku, Japan ; NTT Communication Science Laboratories, Human Information Science Laboratory , Atsugi-shi, Japan ; Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology, Japan Science and Technology Agency , Atsugi-shi, Japan.
authors.forename: Masatoshi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ukezono
authors.affiliation: NTT Communication Science Laboratories, Human Information Science Laboratory , Atsugi-shi, Japan ; Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology, Japan Science and Technology Agency , Atsugi-shi, Japan.
authors.forename: Satoshi F
authors.initials: SF
authors.lastname: Nakashima
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Meiji Gakuin University , Minato-ku, Japan ; Graduate School of System Life Sciences, Kyushu University , Fukuoka, Japan.
authors.forename: Ryunosuke
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sudo
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Meiji Gakuin University , Minato-ku, Japan ; Department of Liberal Arts, Hiroshima Bunka Gakuen University , Hiroshima, Japan.
authors.forename: Akira
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Yamazaki
authors.affiliation: NTT Communication Science Laboratories, Human Information Science Laboratory , Atsugi-shi, Japan ; Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology, Japan Science and Technology Agency , Atsugi-shi, Japan ; Center for Baby Science, Organization for Research Initiatives and Development, Doshisha University , Kyoto, Japan.
authors.forename: Yuji
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Takano
keywords: arousal; drive theory; observation; social facilitation; social perception