Blog Post #4

In this blog post I will be discussing social facilitation, specifically the distraction conflict theory. Recently I had two of my friends from my hometown visit campus and attend one of my football games. I was very excited to see them and to have them see me play, as they have both only seen me play on one other occasion. We were playing Ohio Wesleyan on this day, a team who I have had great success against in the past, and a team whose defense I know how to exploit very well. Unfortunately on this day I had one of the worst games of my career and turned the ball over multiple times. I believe that I was focused on and distracted by the presence of my friends, which led me to perform poorly. After the game I led myself into counter-factual thinking: “what if my friends hadn’t been there? Would I have played better? What if I had prepared differently and not been so focused on their presence?” This may be a recurring theme in my play on the football field. When the same two friends came to watch me play last season, I played in a way that was not typical of myself. It was not outstanding enough for me to attribute my play to their presence, but that occasion too led me to similar counter-factual thinking. I am not completely convinced that I am always a victim of the distraction conflict theory, however. When my uncle came to watch me play college football for the first time last season, I broke three single game records on my way to a near personal best performance. As a whole, there have been times where I have proven the distraction conflict theory, and other times when I have proven social facilitation idea by performing better in the presence of a specific audience.