The Audience Effect

There’s a fascinating but unsurprising psychological principle called “The Audience Effect”. Basically, when you’re being watched by someone else, your performance improves. The Audience Effect is a derivative of “The Hawthorne Effect” which states that performance improves simply by being observed.

But there’s extra power in play when someone else is observing you, and it ties into our hardwired social dynamics. Evolutionarily it serves humans to impress others. When we do it means that others are more likely to place higher value in us, and when that happens it gives us higher placement in the social hierarchy and offers more support for our survival.

This is why we’re ‘on our best behavior’ when we’re around others. We’re more likely to put the shopping cart in the receptacle, choose salad over fries, and be more enthusiastic in conversations with people we want to like us.

I can certainly speak first-hand to how I’m impacted by this. Given that I talk about personal development every day and lead a community of people wanting to be the best version of themselves, I’m constantly held accountable to practicing what I preach. I hold myself to a higher standard because other people are watching what I do. And it helps me to be a better person.

It’s very simple to leverage The Audience Effect for yourself. All you have to do is tell people to start watching and create an expectation to maintain. Tell people you’re going to exercise 3x a week. Tell people you’re going to spend an hour making sales calls a day. Tell people you’re committed to giving 10% of your income to charity.

The Audience Effect improves your performance passively, but it becomes an active tool when you convert it into accountability. A lot of people are resistant to accountability. They don’t want to put themselves on the line for something that they care about or that’s important to them.

To that I’d say, maybe there’s something else that’s unconsciously more important to you that you aren’t aware of. It’s called a ‘competing commitment’. Something else may be driving your decision making in ways you didn’t know. But with awareness, and courage, you can consciously choose what you want to be most important to you.

Engage others in your success and your success will boom. I promise you that.

If you want to be more accountable and follow through fearlessly on the vision that you have for yourself, check this out!