In 1898 a psychologist named Triplett made an interesting observation. In looking over speed records of bicycle racer, he noticed that better speed records were obtained when cyclists raced against each other than when they raced against the clock. This observation led Triplett to perform the first controlled laboratory experiment ever conducted in social psychology. He instructed children to turn a wheel as fast as possible for a certain period of time. Sometimes two children worked at the same in the same room, each with his own wheel; at other times, they worked alone. The results confirmed his theory : Children worked faster in coaction, that when another child doing the same thing was present, than when they worked alone.
Soon after Triplett’s experiment on coaction, it was discovered that the mere presence of a passive spectator (an audience rather than a coactor) was sufficient to facilitate performance. This was discovered accidentally in an experiment on muscular effort and fatigue by Meumann (1904), who found that subjects lifted a weight faster and farther whenever the psychologist was in the room Later experiments have confirmed this audience effect.