Body Doubling

What it is

It borrows from social facilitation, the finding that the presence of others changes performance. A 1983 meta-analysis of 241 studies found others speed up simple tasks and slow complex ones, with small effects, and group attention research found that attending at the same moment draws more thought toward shared content.

In effect

The article on body doubling uses it as the practice whose research roots lie in social facilitation and shared attention.

What it does not say

The practice is described mostly in popular accounts, and the research it borrows from concerns the presence of others, not the practice itself. The effects in the social facilitation work were small, so it does not promise that working beside someone helps every person or every task.

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