Open Collections

Social facilitation through a one-way screen

University of British Columbia

The study examines the effects of being observed via a one-way screen on individuals' ability to learn competitive and non-competitive lists of paired associates. A between-groups design was used, with different subjects serving in each of the four experimental groups. The study was initially carried out with male business administration students at the University of Washington and was repeated with student nurses at the University of British Columbia. All subjects were administered the Manifest Anxiety Scale (Taylor, 1953) and the Suspiciousness Scale (Endicott et al., 1969). The results showed that the male subjects were not significantly affected by observation from behind a one-way screen but that the females made significantly more errors on the competitive list when observed as opposed to when not observed. In learning the non-competitive list the females were also not affected by- observation, but the overall observation-by-list interaction was significant for the females. No relationships were found between performances on the experimental task and the Manifest Anxiety Scale scores for either males or females. Suspiciousness Scale scores were significantly and negatively related to the number of errors made by the males when the four experimental groups were combined; this relationship approached significance for the females. Implications for further research are discussed.

Text

2011-06-07

For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/35266

Psychology

University of British Columbia

Graduate