Applause is a good way to quantify how happy the audience is with the presentation. Observing and understanding this phenomenon can help us learn some interesting information about what triggers a crowd to react in this way.

What is Applause?

Applause is a response characterized by clapping and making noise. Clapping is popular in most countries in the world. Audience members clap their hands at random to produce noise to show they enjoy something or approve of it. Synchronized clapping is popular in some countries as opposed to random clapping.

How To Get Applause From The Audience?

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Giving a good presentation is a great way to get applause, but that is not the only way. Knowing a few things about the physiology of this phenomenon can benefit you as a presenter. Here are some of them:

Measuring The Crowd’s Reaction

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In order to measure it, we simply listen to the audience to get their response. If the presentation went well, chances are that you’ll get some people giving you applause and/or nodding their head.

If it didn’t go well, then you’ll get many people leaving in the middle and checking their phones.

If they were laughing a lot, then obviously they were amused.

Psychology of Applause

Applause Spectators Applaud

The study of social identity and crowd psychology tells us why individuals change their behavior because of people around them. What usually happens within a crowd is that a behavior starts in a few individuals after which it spreads to other members.

This is because many people are introverted in certain contexts and hold back how they feel. While others are extroverted and tend to show more emotion in the same context.

So, in order to get more applause, you will need to understand your audience and appeal to those who would act in an extroverted manner in that context.

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Image: [CC BY 2.0] via Flickr

Image: [CC BY 2.0] via Flickr