A2 PE Audience and Attribution

• based on the notion that the presence of and audience can facilitate performance.
• Zajonc proposed that the presence of an audience has the effect of increasing drive. Since increased arousal facilitates the elicitation of the dom response, the presence of an audience can enhance performance for highly skilled athletes and hinder performance of less skilled athletes

refers to how people attempt to present themselves to shape how others view them

• Zajonc believed that the mere presence of other people is sufficient to increase the arousal of the performer.
• He proposed that the presence of others in itself is arousing and the arousal enhances the production of dominant responses

• Cottrell proposed that the mere presence of others wasn't sufficiently arousing to produce social facilitation. 
• Increases in arousal were only evident when the performer perceived the audience to be judging.

Baron proposed that the limitations of the performer's attentional capacity can explain the effect of an audience, the models of info processing indicate that attention can only be given to a limited number of environmental factors.