What is Social Loafing?
I've always wonder, why would it happen? Since my group members usually handed the homework in while completing their individual tasks on time.
In fact, this is because of social loafing. Social loafing is a phenomenon that refers to people putting less effort when they work collectively as a part of a group compared with finishing an assignment alone. Some reasons attributed to social loafing consist of vaguely defined goals, a large group size, a lack of responsibility, and more. These respectively result in team members’ demotivation, unproductivity, and unaccountability throughout the cooperation.
Social loafing exists everywhere at any time, finalizing a group project is merely a minor aspect that it presents.
What are the Effects of Social Loafing?
Social loafing always causes some negative effects on the group. The most obvious impact is slowing down people’s efficiency and productivity. Here, we can narrow it down to some specific aspects: it leads to poor team spirit and discourages other hard-working teammates.
If most of the members in the group are lazy (they believe that others will contribute more so they don’t need to do too much), no matter how hard the rest of them work, they will be influenced invisibly. Thus, the whole team will become demotivated and not willing to do their work. Another effect is that it affects decision-making skills. Without the full efforts and discussion of all members, the team's decision-making efficiency will be reduced.
Who Proposed the Term 'Social Loafing'?
Max Ringelman, a French professor of agricultural engineering, demonstrated in the 1890s the concept of social loafing. Ringelman, who was also considered one of the founders of social psychology, made people pull on ropes both separately and in groups and measured and compared how hard they pulled. The results indicated that members of a group tended to exert less effort in pulling a rope than did individuals alone.
In more recent research, studies involving modern technology, such as online and distributed groups, have also shown clear evidence of social loafing. Many of the causes of social loafing stem from individual members' feeling that their efforts will not matter to the group.
Experiment Examples
In Kipling Williams, Stephen Harkins, and Bibb Latane’s experiment, participants were asked to produce noise either alone, in groups of two and six, or in pseudogroups where the individuals actually shouted alone but believed that one or five other people were shouting with them. It revealed that although people were able to produce more total sound pressure when they shouted in groups, groups did not produce as much sound as would be expected by merely summing the solitary performances, with actual pairs shouting at only 59% and sixes at only 31% of their potential.
Different Categories of Social Loafing
Free-riding effect was first proposed by American economist Manco Olson in his 1965 book The Logic of Collective Action: The Public Interest and Group Theory. Its basic meaning is to sit on the benefits of others without paying for them. The problem of free-riding is a speculative mentality that occurs in the common good. It refers to people who need some kind of public property but claim in advance that they have no need for it, so that after others pay the price to obtain it, they can sit on it without any effort.
The sucker effect is that individuals are worried that other members of the group do not pay but take the credit for their own, they will see how much effort others have put in before paying for it. Because everyone does not want to become a "sucker" (sucker also means "fool"), the result is that everyone's efforts are significantly less or even no effort, and the group's efforts are therefore much less.
How Do We Avoid Social Loafing?
What we need to understand is that social loafing is mainly due to the decline of social consciousness. Therefore, the first thing we need to think about is creating smaller groups or teams in order to avoid social loafing. Let each member have their own task to complete and the right role to play in the team. At the same time, it is significant to ensure the cohesion of the group and encourage the contribution of each member. To start with our own, we should try to arrange ourselves with self-discipline. Being responsible for the completion of each one’s own tasks, encouraging enthusiasm in a team.
Social loafing happens when people decrease their productivity in group settings. It also reduces people’s motivation and efficiency in decision-making. Max Ringeleman, one of the first people to identify the term social loafing, contributed to the start of social psychology. In addition, the use of modern technologies has furthered the understanding of the term by proving the decreased efforts in individuals during group projects. Even though social loafing can be detrimental to personal and group success, it can be avoided in several ways, such as minimizing group sizes and emphasizing the importance of self-discipline.
Each person’s contribution should be valued in a group. The decrease in social loafing not only enhances the quality of the work, but also strengthens the trust between group members.
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