Psychological activities in competitive sports often exhibit seemingly contradictory dualistic characteristics, yet there remains a lack of systematic integration and analysis of these paradoxical phenomena. This study focuses on the social influence paradox of social facilitation versus social inhibition. By reviewing relevant literature and adopting a three-dimensional ‘phenomenon-mechanism-intervention’ framework, we conduct a systematic analysis of theoretical and empirical research on this paradox. Findings reveal that research on social facilitation/inhibition effects in sports contexts has evolved over a century—from the first sports psychology experiment to two waves of research and three core theories—demonstrating distinct theoretical dynamism. Over half a century of evolution, the theoretical frameworks of these core theories have gradually shifted from unidirectional causal explanations to a dynamic ‘environment-individual-task’ interaction model. Building on this, we integrate recent empirical studies on social facilitation effects in sports context to explore the transformation patterns between advantages and disadvantages, providing insights for supporting athletes' psychological training and optimizing competition environments.

Chen Li. The Double-Edged Mirror in the Arena: Theoretical Paradoxes of Social Facilitation and Inhibition. Frontiers in Sport Research (2025), Vol. 7, Issue 5: 109-117. https://doi.org/10.25236/FSR.2025.070517.

[1] Allport, F. H. (1920). The influence of group upon the rate of work. Journal of Educational Psychology, 11(4), 191-206.

[2] Neave, H., & Wolfson, M. (2003). Home disadvantage in sports: A meta-analysis[J]. Journal of Sports Economics, 4(2): 123-145.

[3] Baumeister, R. (1991). Choking under pressure: The role of self-consciousness. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 13(4), 389-406.

[4] Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. Harper & Row.

[5] Pollard, & Richard. (2006). Worldwide regional variations in home advantage in association football. Journal of Sports Sciences, 24(3):231-240.

[6] Wadhwani, B. D., Lim, H. B. T., & Mcconnell, B. L. (2024). Immediate and sustained effects of left‐hand dynamic handgrip on choking in men's basketball free‐throw performance. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 74(1).

[7] Triplett, N. (1898). The dynamogenic factors in pace making and competition. American Journal of Psychology, 9, 507-533.

[8] Allport, F. H. (1924). Social psychology. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

[9] Stroebe, W. (2012). The truth about Triplett (1898), but nobody seems to care. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7, 54-57.

[10] The Free Dictionary, Norman Triplett. In The Free Dictionary. Retrieved October 15, 2025, from https://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Norman+Triplett.

[11] Zajonc, R. B. (1966). Social facilitation[M]. New York: Academic Press.

[12] Dashiell, J. F. (1930). An experimental analysis of some group effects. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 25:190-199.

[13] Travis, L. E. (1925). The effect of a small audience upon eye-hand coordination. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 20:142-146.

[14] Chen, S. C. (1937). Social modification of the activity of ants in nest- building. Physiological Zoology, 10:420-436. 

[15] Pessin, J. (1933). The comparative effects of social and mechanical stimulation on memorizing. American Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 28:148-154. 

[16] Pessin, J. & Husband, R. W. (1933). Effects of social stimulation on human maze learning. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 28:148-154. 

[17] Gates, M. F. & Allee, W. C. (1933). Conditioned behavior of isolated and grouped cockroaches on a simple maze. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 15:331-358.

[18] Klopfer, P. H. (1958). Influence of social interaction on learning rates in birds. Science, 128, 903.

[19] Lu Han. (2016). Review of Social Encouragement Theory and Related Research. Shanxi Youth, (20): 58-59.

[20] Zajonc, R. B. (1969). Social facilitation of dominant and subordinate responses. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 5(2): 163-171.

[21] Ma Qifeng, Zhao Yue, Yang Fan. (2025). The differential impact of physical exercise on elderly health: a tracked survey based on CLASS. China Sports Science and Technology, 61 (07): 35-43+97.

[22] Zajonc, R. B. (1965). Social facilitation. Science, 149(3681), 269-274. 

[23] Cottrell, N. B. (1972). Social facilitation.  In C. G. McClintock (Ed.), Experimental Social Psychology (pp. 185–236).  New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

[24] Baron, R. S. (1986). Distraction-conflict theory: Progress and problems. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 19, 1-40.

[25] Sanders, M. G., Zimmermann, R. R., & Vogel, W. H. (1978). Visual distraction effects on cognitive performance. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 4(4), 614-628.

[26] Wong, T., Alvarez, L., Schmidt, F., & Okafor, B. (2025). Cultural cortisol patterns in athletes: Stress response variations across collectivist and individualist societies. Psych neuroendocrinology, 162, Article 104891.

[27] Dickerson, S. S., & Kemeny, M. E. (2008). The Behavioral and Physiological Consequences of Social Stress. Psychological Bulletin, 130(3), 355-391.

[28] Eysenck, M. W. (2016). Anxiety and cognition: A unified theory. In Psychology revivals: Anxiety and cognition (pp. 135-162). Routledge.

[29] Baumeister, R. F. (1984). When novices surpass experts: The difficulty of a task may increase with expertise. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 10(4), 483-495.

[30] Guerin, B. (1993). Social Facilitation. New York, NY: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, p. 46-73.

[31] Cottrell, N. B., Wack, D. L., Sekerak, G. J., & Rittle, R. H. (1968).  Social facilitation of dominant responses by the presence of an audience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 9(3), 245-250.

[32] Cottrell, N. B. (1968). Performance in the presence of other human beings: Mere presence, audience, and affiliation effects. In E. C. Simmel, R. A. Hoppe, & G. A. Milton (Eds.), Social facilitation and imitative behavior (pp. 91–110). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

[33] Bond, C. F., & Titus, L. J. (1983). Social Facilitation of Perception, Cognition, and Behavior. Psychological Bulletin, 93(2), 265-292.

[34] Seta, J. J., & Seta, C. E. (1992). Personal anxiety and performance outcomes in a social context. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 22(12), 983-996.

[35] Kim, H., & Markus, H. R. (1999). Deviance or uniqueness, harmony or conformity? A cultural analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(4), 785-800.

[36] Huguet, P., Dumas, F., & Monteil, J. M. (1999). Performance feedback and threat apprehension effects on social facilitation. British Journal of Social Psychology, 38(4), 429–444.

[37] Guerin, B. (1993). Social facilitation. Cambridge University Press.

[38] Baron, R. S., & Erwin, D. W. (1977). The distracting effects of others: Conflict and enhancement. Paper presented at the & zwnj. Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association (APA) & zwnj, San Francisco, CA.

[39] Baron, R. S., Moore, D., & Sanders, G. S. (1978). Distraction as a source of drive in social facilitation research. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36(8), 816-824.

[40] Hill, D. M., et al. (2010). Choking in sport: A review. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 3(1), 24-39.

[41] Kahneman, D. (1973). Attention and effort. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

[42] Sanders, G. S. (1981). Driven by distraction:  An integrative review of social facilitation theory.  Psychological Bulletin, 90(3), 389-400.

[43] Moore, T. E., & Baron, R. S. (1983). Social facilitation: A self-presentational view. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44(1), 52-65.

[44] Shomstein, S., & Yantis, S. (2004). Task-Dependent Top-Down Biases in the Superior Colliculus Revealed by Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Journal of Neuroscience, 24(47), 10702-10706. 

[45] Hüttermann, S., et al. (2020). The role of passion in the relationship between perfectionism and burnout: A meta-analysis. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 47, 101634. 

[46] Smith, J. D., et al. (2023). Audience effects across sport disciplines: A meta-analysis of 12743 performances. Sports Medicine, 53(4), 879-895.

[47] Chen, L., Tanaka, M., & Uchida, Y. (2024). Prefrontal cortex reactivity in collectivists during social evaluative tasks: An fNIRS hyperscanning study. Culture and Brain, 12(1), 45-62.

[48] Gan, S. W. Y., Bailenson, J. N., & Hancock, P. A. (2022). Virtual presence efficacy: A meta-analysis of telepresence effects on performance. PNAS, 119(34), e2122215119.

[49] Ono, K., Ishii, A., & Watanabe, K. (2023). Suppressed mu-rhythm desynchronization in virtual audience conditions: Evidence from TMS-EEG. Neuro Image, 277, 120231.

[50] Li, Q., Müller, H. J., & Savelsbergh, G. J. P. (2022). Neural correlates of evaluative threat in gymnastic performance: An fMRI-kinematics integrated study. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 44(5), 332-344.

[51] Eysenck, M. W., Derakshan, N., Santos, R., & Calvo, M. G. (2007). Anxiety and Cognitive Performance: Attentional Control Theory. Emotion, 7(2), 336-353.

[52] Bishop, S. J. (2009). Trait anxiety and impoverished prefrontal control of attention. Nature Neuroscience, 12(1), 92-98.

[53] Berggren, N., & Derakshan, N. (2013). Attentional control deficits in trait anxiety: Why you see them and why you don’t. Biological Psychology, 92(3), 440-446.

[54] Collins, R. L., et al. (2024). Pressure-skill dynamics in sports performance: A three-dimensional moderation framework. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 70, 102-115.

[55] Lee, S., & Park, J. (2025). Ecological gaze patterns under social evaluation: Evidence from golf putting in VR. Nature Human Behaviour, 9(3), 412-425.

[56] Holmstrom, A., et al. (2025). Social affordances in virtual environments: How interactive digital audiences alter performance outcomes. Computers in Human Behavior, 158, 108–123.

[57] Zhang, R., et al. (2025). Holographic audience effects in mixed reality environments: Presence-performance inverted U-curve model. Computers in Human Behavior, 154, 108-120. 

[58] Holmstrom, L., Andersson, M., Karlsson, H., & Lundberg, U. (2024). Modulating cortisol response thresholds via real-time fMRI neurofeedback: A proof-of-concept study. Psychneuroendocrinology, 162, 106941. 

[59] Guerin, P. (2024). Task-sociality interaction model. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 72. Advance online publication.

[60] Wong, T. K. S., Li, J., Mwangi, B., Schmidt, F., & Chen, X. (2025). Cultural neuroendocrinology of social facilitation: Cortisol and alpha-amylase responses in collectivist athletes. PNAS Nexus, 4(1), Article pgad426.