In the Presence of Others

For over a hundred years it has been recognized that cyclists go faster when part of a group (the Tour de France is a team event). Our tendency to perform simple tasks well in the presence of others is called social facilitation. Interestingly, the opposite is true for complex tasks as social facilitation only applies to well-learned activities.

In addition, when people are good at a particular activity, whether complex or simple, they perform better when a crowd is watching. However, if they are not skilled, they do worse. Being in a crowd intensifies positive and negative emotions since our state of arousal (heart rate, breathing, perspiration, etc.) rises.

There are three major reasons for this: fear of being judged (evaluation apprehension) either formally or informally; distraction, focusing on those around; and mere presence. This last one is especially interesting as it occurs in situations where we would not expect presence to make a difference. This has been shown with chickens, for example, who will eat more grain when with other chickens, and with grasshoppers who learn mazes more slowly when with other grasshoppers. It makes you wonder about schools where children are not streamed.

In humans, there is something called diminished social responsibility. When people take part in a tug-of-war, if they have been led to believe they are alone, they pull harder than when part of a group. This is called social loafing, and might explain why a study of communist farms in 1979 showed that the 1% of private farms produced 27% of the output.

Importantly, when people lose a sense of collective responsibility, it is called deindividuation, or put another way, just becoming one of the crowd. When this happens, laws are more readily broken and violence increases because we perceive ourselves to be not seen and to not matter.

Feeling connected is an essential part of the human existence, whether it be to family, tribe, friends or something bigger, such as feeling a connection to life and the universe, a sense of the divine. When we are or feel separated from other humans, a spiritual connection becomes even more important.

Finding that spiritual connection is not always easy, especially in societies that promote individuality and self-interest through competition. We can’t all be better than average!

Using channeled energy is a convenient and effective way to make a spiritual connection, as is meditation. Feeling more connected to life, of which we are part, makes it better for everyone and not at the expense of others.