The audience effect is the impact that a passive audience has on a subject performing a task. It was first formally noted in various psychology studies in the early 20th century. During some studies the presence of a passive audience facilitated the better performance of a simple task; while other studies show the presence of a passive audience inhibited the performance of a more difficult task.

In 1965, Robert Zajonc

Robert Zajonc

Robert Bolesław Zajonc was a Polish-born American social psychologist who is known for his decades of work on a wide range of social and cognitive processes.-Mere Exposure Effect:...

 proposed Drive theory as an explanation of the audience effect.

See also

• Audience theory
  Audience theory
  Audience theory is an element of thinking that developed within academic literary theory and cultural studies.With a specific focus on rhetoric, some, such as Walter Ong, have suggested that the audience is a construct made up by the rhetoric and the rhetorical situation the text is addressing...
  
  
• Social facilitation
  Social facilitation
  Social facilitation is the tendency for people to do better on simple tasks when in the presence of other people. This implies that whenever people are being watched by others, they will do well on things that they are already good at doing...
  
  
• Social inhibition
  Social inhibition
  Social inhibition is a conscious or subconscious constraint by a person of behaviour of a social nature. The constraint may be in relation to behavior, appearance, or a subject matter for discussion, besides other matters. There are a number of reasons for social inhibitions, including that the...
  
  
• Social loafing
  Social loafing
  In the social psychology of groups, social loafing is the phenomenon of people exerting less effort to achieve a goal when they work in a group than when they work alone...