In the social psychology of groups, social loafing is the phenomenon of people exerting less effort to achieve a goal when they work in a group than when they work alone.[1][2] This is seen as one of the main reasons groups are sometimes less productive than the combined performance of their members working as individuals, but should be distinguished from the coordination problems that groups sometime experience.
Social loafing is also associated with two concepts that are typically used to explain why it occurs: The "free-rider" theory and the resulting "sucker effect", which is an individual’s reduction in effort in order to avoid pulling the weight of a fellow group member.
Research on social loafing began with rope pulling experiments by Ringelmann, who found that members of a group tended to exert less effort into pulling a rope than did individuals alone. In more recent research, studies involving modern technology, such as online and distributed groups, has also shown clear evidence of social loafing. Many of the causes of social loafing stem from an individual feeling that his or her effort will not matter to the group. Therefore, effective ways to reduce social loafing involve increasing the motivation of individual group members or improving their coordination.
Good entry! Social loafing is not a new concept for us. As students we have to work as group for many projects. Sometimes you feel so comfortable working as a team, but this does no happen always. Other times you feel very frustrated because the amount of work is not equilibrate, and some group members tend to act if the work were any of their business. Could it be “diffusion of responsibility” (the thought that work is someone else obligation)?
ReplyDeleteThanks once again.
Irene ( 1ºA, 2013)
Completely agree with you, Irene. It is very frustrating when, in a group, others don't work. I think that, to reduce social loafing, a good strategy would be to differentiate each person's task very clearly.
ReplyDeleteLucas Castillo, 1º A
Yes, we have seen in class some methods to reduce social loafing in groups (unit 5), we have to put in practice them.
ReplyDeletePilar Díaz-Pavón Mañosa, 1ºA
There should be a great group cohesion, well established norms and goals,and use continuously moivational strategies so there is not social loafing. It would be also very useful to promote involvement and increase personal responsibility. I searched for some strategies when we first learned about this concept in social psychology because I feel also very frustrated when it happens.
ReplyDeleteNicolás Castillón 1º A 2013
I absolutely agree with Nico; in my opinion what he said is very complete. The fact that everybody has his/her role and task clear and is aware that their work matters is essential to prevent social loafing. Personal involvement and intrinsic motivation of the group members is the ideal for a group to function synergically (I talk from personal experience), also good cohesion and horizontal communication (when possible) foster a good and fair distribution of work and performance. In my opinion, the technique that prevents social loafing (or informs that has happened) is the "Jigsaw Classroom" technique. The key point of this technique and techniques that belong to its family is that it ensures the participation of every member by splitting the work material into equal (in size), but different (in content) parts. At the end, there is a test of the whole material, and because the test is general, every member needs knowledge of every part; thus, they're interdependent to succeed.
DeleteCamilo Ábalos (1st A, Psychology of Groups)
DeleteI remember one class we had on our first semester.It was in social Psychology. It was about social loafing with a group bearers. They tried to observ if working on that group helps to the diffusion of responsibility and incredibly they found that there was social loafing among team members. Our teacher didn´t tol.d us trhe conclusion of the experiment so I leave you with the intrigue...
ReplyDelete(Elena Gómez de Agüero ORTIZ 1ºA)