The trouble with friendly faces: Skilled performance with a supportive audience

In 3 experiments, supportive audiences were associated with unexpected perf ormance decrements (i.e., "choking" under pressure). On a difficult, skill- based task, participants were more likely to fail when observed by supporti ve audiences than when observed by nonsupportive audiences. When the criter ion for success was easy, supportive audiences had no effect. With a diffic ult criterion, supportive audiences elicited cautious, protective strategie s that were associated with poor performance: Speed decreased without impro ving accuracy. Despite impairments caused by supportive audiences, performe rs found supportive audiences more helpful and less stressful than neutral or adversarial audiences, and participants believed (wrongly) that they per formed better with a supportive audience. Results suggest that people are n ot aware of debilitating effects of supportive audiences and may opt for em otional comfort rather than objective success.