Ishaan is a skilled tabla player who practises every day alone in his room. At the annual school function, he plays a solo while the whole school watches him. His teacher notices that he plays faster and more smoothly than he ever does in practice. A week later, Ishaan takes part in a mass drill with forty other students. The chief guest judges only the overall pattern made by the whole group. The drill teacher sees that Ishaan's arm movements are slow and half-hearted, though he is usually very energetic.
Which of the following correctly names the influence of others on Ishaan's behaviour at the function and in the drill, in that order?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → Social facilitation and social loafing
Option (1) Social facilitation and social loafing — Correct. At the function Ishaan performs alone in the presence of others; the audience raises his arousal and lifts the work of someone already skilled. This is social facilitation. In the drill his effort is pooled with the group and not judged on its own, so he works less hard. This is social loafing.
Option (2) Social loafing and social facilitation — Incorrect. The two labels are swapped. Playing alone before an audience is social facilitation; the slack effort in a drill judged only as a whole is social loafing.
Option (3) Social facilitation and groupthink — Incorrect. The first label fits, but groupthink is a fault in the way a group takes decisions. The drill involves no group decision, only individual effort on a pooled task.
Option (4) Group polarisation and social loafing — Incorrect. Group polarisation is the strengthening of a group's initial position after discussion, which leads to extreme decisions. Ishaan's solo is a performance before others.
NCERT (2026-27): “INFLUENCE OF GROUP ON INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOUR “Social facilitation research suggests that presence of others leads to arousal and can motivate individuals to enhance their performance if they are already good at solving something. This enhancement occurs when a person’s efforts are individually evaluated. What would happen if efforts of an individual in a group are pooled so that you look at the performance of the group as a whole? Do you know what often happens? It has been found that individuals work less hard in a group than they do when performing alone. …” |