Research on social facilitation over the 12 years since 196S is reviewed. It is concluded that the drive-theory analysis proposed by Zajonc in 1965 still provides the best overall theoretical framework for explaining social facilitation, but that Cottrell's elaboration, which emphasizes learned drives as the motivational basis of the phenomenon, appears justified. The main tenet of the drivetheory approach, that the presence of conspecific organisms is arousing, has received additional support from studies not based on Zajone's Hullian assumptions. The secondary motive state associated with social facilitation is probably aversive in nature and is describable in terms such as learned fear of failure, anxiety, or anticipatory frustration. Alternative explanations for social facilitation based on current cognitive views of behavior may ultimately shed light on important mediating processes but as yet do not possess the economy of constructs offered by the drive-theory approach.The study of social facilitation is as old as experimental social psychology itself. In the first social psychological laboratory investigation, Triplett (1898) found that speed on a simple motor task was greater among members of coacting pairs than among subjects performing alone. In the decades that followed, several investigators continued to report effects on performance of not only coactors but also passive audiences. The effects, however, were not always facilitative; often social settings produced performance decrements, thereby creating a paradox that remained essentially unsolved until the mid-1960s. Nonetheless, the collection of data on the problem proceeded at a brisk pace, peaking in the decade from 1925 to 1935. The early studies have been reviewed elsewhere (Cottrell, 1968(Cottrell, , 1972Dashiell, 1935) and will not be discussed here.Interest in social facilitation eventually waned. By 1954, Kelly and Thibaut could conclude that "these phenomena [i.e., audience and coaction effects], which were once thought to be basic to the study of social Requests for reprints should be sent to

In two experiments introverts and extraverts either chose the level of intensity of noise to be heard during a paired-associates (PA) learning task or were assigned noise at a given level of intensity. In both experiments extraverts chose more intense noise levels than introverts. Extraverts and introverts were equal in psychophysiological arousal when stimulated with noise of an intensity chosen by either themselves or yoked members of the same personality classification. Introverts were found to be more aroused than extraverts when compared at the same intensity, regardless of whether the intensity was one preferred by extraverts or one preferred by introverts. At very high and very low levels of intensity of noise stimulation, introverts and extraverts were found to be equally aroused in the second experiment. In both experiments PA learning was best among introverts and extraverts who were stimulated at a level of intensity chosen by themselves or members of the same personality classification. The results are discussed in terms of Yerkes-Dodson Law and its relation to extraversion-introversion.One potentially important corollary of Eysenck's theory of extroversion-introversion (E-I), which has received scant attention in experimental research, concerns the behavior of introverts and extraverts under conditions in which choice of stimulation is possible. When given free choice, extraverts should seek out and prefer higher levels of intensity in the stimulation they receive than those chosen by introverts (H. J. Eysenck, 1967). What evidence we have on the subject, however, is not conclusive. Much of it comes from the study of tolerance for sensory deprivation, which, for the reason stated earlier, should be lower in extraverts than in introverts. Although some early research showed that subjects who tolerated sensory deprivation well were significantly more introverted than those who tolerated it poorly (Petrie, Collins, & Solomon, 1960), later studies tended to show either that introverts were poorer than extraverts at tolerating sensory deprivation (Tranel, 1962

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Two experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that observation of media violence elicits thoughts and emotional responses related to aggression. In Experiment 1, highly violent videotapes elicited more aggressive cognitions than did a less violent tape. This effect was moderated by the trait of stimulus screening. In Experiment 2, aggressive cognitions increased with the level of violence in the videotape, and physical assaultiveness influenced this effect. Hostility and systolic blood pressure were higher in response to the most violent video than in response to the other two. Hostility was influenced by emotional susceptibility and dissipation-rumination, and systolic blood pressure was influenced by emotional susceptibility and assaultiveness.

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