Publish at January 21 2026 Updated January 21 2026
January 6, 2014 : At CES in Las Vegas, Samsung, to present its new curved-screen ultra-high-definition TV, invites Michael Bay, director of "Transformers" and "Armageddon".
Joe Stinziano, one of the vice presidents of Samsung Electronics America, asks Michael Bay to come on stage. Bay begins his speech without waiting for his sponsor's manager to present his work. Realizing his mistake, Michael Bay apologizes and gives the floor back to Joe Stinziano, but the confusion has caused the prompter, where the two partners' speeches were scrolling, to shift. Michael Bay tried to improvise, then froze, and finally left the stage with an apology (1).
April 14, 1996 : Last day of the 60th Masters golf tournament at Augusta, Georgia. Greg Norman has been in the lead since the start of the competition, and all the experts agree that this time he's going to win the famous green jacket, the Masters prize. Greg Norman has never won this competition and often comes second at the end of the race. On the final day, despite his lead, the Australian lost his footing and failed on shots that were easy for his level of play. He loses his legendary composure and ends up losing the competition.
You've been preparing for this moment for a long time. You feel ready but nervous. You have stage fright. Even though Sarah Bernhardt used to say "Stage fright comes with talent" - a little snide remark, by the way, from the great actress to a young actress who claimed she never had stage fright - these often irrepressible stress surges happen to beginners as well as the best.
Performing a task in front of an audience requires a great deal of emotional mastery: athletes, musicians, actors, students, project managers and lecturers all know this. They all have one thing in common: the gaze of others.
Our ancestors, the first humans, passed on many useful things to us, but sometimes also skills that become obstacles. In the early days of humanity, being alone was synonymous with certain death. The group was essential to survival. Integration into the group was a daily challenge.
Since then, our social brain has developed extremely well, giving sometimes inordinate importance to the opinions of others. A poor public performance is interpreted by our archaic brain as a risk of rejection, triggering a stress response identical to that of physical aggression. The medial prefrontal cortex, which concentrates the areas of self-esteem and identity (2), is activated when we feel observed.
When alerted, the amygdala triggers a secretion of cortisol and adrenalin intended for flight or fight, rather than for the execution of a task requiring concentration. Blood is diverted from the cortex to the muscles. The expression "losing one's nerve" takes on its full meaning here, as our cognitive capacities are annihilated in favor of archaic reflexes. But this phenomenon also depends on our skills.
The gaze of others is not always negative. In 1968, researchers Henchy and Glass highlighted significant differences depending on the conditions under which a task was observed. The best results were obtained in front of an audience of experts, and the worst in performance without observers. Motivation therefore seems to increase with performance in public. Moreover, this motivation is all the greater when the audience is considered by the performer to be competent in his or her assessment.
On the other hand, the level of mastery of the task when observed influences our own performance. This is what psychologist Robert Zajonc formalized in 1965.
In his theory, Zajonc assumes that the presence of others has a facilitating effect on simple tasks with a correct dominant response, and an inhibiting effect on complex tasks with an incorrect dominant response. (3)
This tends to highlight the fact that observation triggers superior results when the performer is competent, and inferior results if the performer is fragile. However, contradictory studies show different results. Another proposed explanation comes from researcher Nickolas B. Cottrell and his colleagues.
They argue that, rather than the mere presence of others reinforcing the dominant response, a spectator audience is necessary. In other words, it's the feeling of being evaluated - rather than being watched - that affects performance. The anxiety of knowing whether those watching are evaluating our performance is what triggers the dominant response during task performance (4).
Beyond the causes of these phenomena, an alternative lies in what we can do to alleviate these situations, which require concrete means to lessen, prevent or resolve them.
Maria Joao Pires, who had come at short notice to replace a pianist who had withdrawn, joined Italian conductor Riccardo Chailly on stage for a dress rehearsal in front of a packed house of 2,000 people. She was about to perform Mozart's Concerto No. 23, K.488, which she had played a few weeks earlier and whose score was still fresh in her memory.
Riccardo Chailly got ready, raised his baton and signalled the orchestra to begin. From the very first bars, panic ensues. This is the wrong concerto! The day before, on the telephone, when she was called to propose this replacement, she understood "K.488" (the famous concerto n°23 she had performed a few weeks earlier), whereas she was told "K.466", i.e. concerto n°20, which she had not played for almost a year. (5)
This great performer indicates that she remains anxious about the responsibility she feels when she plays. This belief represents a first step towards resolution. Taking an objective view of what's at stake in a situation allows us to step back and save ourselves. We're not all piloting a nuclear power plant or an airplane when we're carrying out tasks for which we're expected to perform. Relativizing the consequences for those who observe us but don't evaluate us can be a first step.
"They're watching me. They're not judging me!"
Once we're a little protected from the gaze of others, the other issue can be personal. The way we look at ourselves. After all, failure in the face of disproportionate expectations can have a profound effect. Succeed because you've prepared to succeed! It may sound simple, but what's at stake here is essential. We work, we practice, we seek to progress to prove to ourselves that we are capable.
he fear of not succeeding remains at the heart of these moments of performance, whether artistic, medical, social or sporting. Personal indulgence is a second way of reducing the blocking phenomenon.
"Do your best!"
A third approach is to find ways of dealing with the "dysfunction" as it happens. Maria Joao Pires explains that when she was about to start her part, after the orchestra's introduction, which lasts about two minutes, she "talked" to her fear.
"The terror was so absolute, so real. I decided to let the fear take over and do its thing, but only for five seconds, not one more. I started counting ... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ... and then I played their concerto to the hilt and everyone was happy."
Welcoming one's emotions or those of others is becoming such an overused expression that it's hard to dare to use it. And yet it's a good part of the beginning of a solution when faced with these chasms of collapse. Giving concrete space to emotion, by counting to five, seems to be an avenue worth exploring to tame our cortisol- and adrenalin-fueled brains. Three or four additional conscious abdominal breaths have an almost immediate effect on cortisol production.
In 2005, Russian acrobat Anna Gosudareva made world circus history by achieving a feat previously considered almost impossible for a woman: successfully executing and landing a quadruple somersault on the Russian bar, one of the most demanding apparatus in the circus arts. The feat took place during a performance by Troupe Rodion at the Festival International du Cirque de Monte-Carlo in Monaco, one of the most prestigious events in the industry.
The Russian bar is an apparatus carried by two or more artists, on which the acrobat must achieve remarkable height, rotation and precision to perform extremely complex figures. The quadruple somersault requires an almost perfect combination of strength, momentum, rotation speed, body control and flight time (6).
This record was achieved after three public attempts, two of which were unsuccessful. The athlete's reaction remains an enigma when we see her get up after the fall, get up again and ask to resume the test. Where does motivation lie at such moments? What counts most? How do you regain lost abilities? What can we rely on?
It's at the moment of execution that the difference is made. Solutions do exist.
Moving from a defensive to an offensive posture opens up promising prospects.
Execution requires emotional competence. By understanding that the gaze of others is a source of fuel rather than a threat, and by training your brain to "play" with this energy, the fateful moment can become a tremendous opportunity.
Illustration: manseok Kim - Pixabay
References
1- Michael Bay plants Samsung at the CES 2014 conference in Las Vegas https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x19bai1
2- "Cortex - Percez les secrets de l'intelligence" Michel Lévy- Editions Albin Michel- September 2025
3-"Social facilitation" - Wikipedia- https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facilitation_sociale#Th%C3%A9orie_de_l'appr%C3%A9hension_of%C3%A9valuation
4- Cottrell, N. B., Wack, D. L., Sekerak, G. J. and Rittle, R. H. (1968). Social facilitation of dominant responses by the presence of an audience and the mere presence of others. Journal of personality and social psychology, 9(3), 245.
5-"It was very frightening": Maria Joao Pires recalls the moment when she prepared the wrong Mozart concerto" March 13, 2024- RTBF- https://www.rtbf.be/article/c-etait-tres-effrayant-maria-joao-pires-revient-sur-ce-moment-ou-elle-avait-prepare-le-mauvais-concerto-de-mozart-11343030
6- Spectacular facts - Instagram- Anna Gosudareva- https://www.instagram.com/popular/anna-gosudareva-quadruple-somersault/reels/DSpvHgbCPgZ/
7- Get Excited: Reappraising Pre-Performance Anxiety as Excitement- Alison Wood Brooks- 2013- https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/xge-a0035325.pdf
8-Mental and dynamic imaging and the PETTLEP method - November 17, 2024- NEXOO- Mental performance- https://www.nexoo.ch/post/pettlep
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