All of the theories in the present chapter have been put together because they relate to a few common points. They all deal with a change in the social valuation of particular behaviours in the presence of other persons. That is, without directing the behaviour of the subject explicitly, the presence of another person can lead to an increased awareness of the social value of certain behaviours, of social standards, or of the social consequences of behaviours. This increased awareness can lead to increased conformity to those standards. These theories do not concern ‘hard-wired’ patterns since the relevant social standards must be learned at some point in the socialization process.

The ideas contained in these theories have all been raised in Chapter 2 when discussing the pre-1965 literature. These include the automaticity of behaviour (Triplett, 1898), the effects of conformity to social norms (Allport, 1924a), changes in self-attention (Ekdahl, 1929; Ruger, 1910), and changes towards looking good in the eyes of others and presenting an impression on them (Burri, 1931; Hanawalt and Ruttiger, 1944; Murphy and Murphy, 1931; Seidman et al., 1957).

These theories are mostly human-specific. With a few exceptions (5.5), it is hard to see how they could be adapted to explain the animal literature. Most of them are also a product of the rise of the cognitive approach in social psychology, although some still retain drive assumptions (5.1, 5.2, 5.4, 5.6).