Abstract des Autors

The phenomenon of social facilitation has been an important research topic of social psychology for over a hundred of years. It is fundamentally related to changes in individual behavior resulting from presence of other people and, as such, it presents a very important topic even in contemporary social and sport psychology. The present article reviews the most important studies focusing on the role of social facilitation in the context of competition, its relation to personality characteristics, other people, and other factors. These studies have brought their respective theories and explanations. Nevertheless, although various approaches offer somewhat differing views, they generally agree that the presence of other people modifies the performance of an individual. Competitive sport creates a wide range of situations in which the psychological state of an athlete (concentration, level of activation, emotions related to the expected outcome) is influenced by the presence of other people (e.g. spectators, referees, coaches, other competitors). Various studies examined for example an impact of traveling, home versus foreign environment, or presence of friendly or unfriendly audience, on the performance and its outcome both in individual and team sports. Although the research results are still ambiguous, it appears that the effect of social facilitation on sporting performance is an obvious fact. It depends on circumstances whether the outcome is positive or negative. Verf.-Referat