Social loafing

"Social loafing" is a term used in social psychology to describe a social behavior in groups that leads to a poorly executed group task. Studies show that social loafing occurs because individuals tend to put less work into group efforts than they would if they were doing the work by themselves. Social loafers often expect others to compensate for their lack of effort. The attitude can transfer among group members.

Social loafing mainly reduces productivity of additive tasks, where effectiveness is calculated by the efforts of each member. Social loafing is less of a setback for problem-solving efforts that tend to rely on the group members with higher brainpower. Social loafing is less likely to occur if group members are invested in the task. The phenomenon is often studied in conjunction with the free-rider theory and the sucker-effect theory, concepts that attempt to explain the incidence of social loafing.

Early Studies

French professor Max Ringelmann conducted some of the earliest psychological experiments concerning the concept of social loafing. In the 1890s, Ringelmann created a social experiment that involved people pulling on ropes separately or together as part of a group. He then measured how hard the people pulled in each scenario. Ringelmann found that people pulled much less if they were part of a group than they did on their own. The bigger the group, the less effort each person put forward. In the ensuing years, social psychologists continued to garner similar results with different tasks.

One of the most prominent studies in social loafing took place in 1979 under the guidance of Professor Bibb Latané, who coined the term "social loafing" with colleagues Kipling Williams and Stephen Harkins. Latané and his associates gathered a group of college students and asked each one to cheer as loudly as they could while blindfolded and wearing headphones to mask the noise. The researchers told some students that they were cheering alone, while others were told that they would be part of a cheering group with either one or five other students. In reality, each participant cheered alone. The study found that participants cheered the loudest when told they were alone. Participants that were told they were in a group cheered less intensely.

Factors behind Social Loafing

Further studies into social loafing produced consistent results: People exercised less effort in joint tasks. Researchers found the larger the group, the smaller the effort put forth by participants. Social psychologists often point to one of two psychological concepts when trying to account for social loafing. The first, the free-rider theory, maintains that if a group is doing exceptionally well in a given task, some individuals feel like their input is unnecessary and put forth less effort. The second, the sucker-effect theory, proposes that when group members feel like they are doing more than their fair share of work or feel taken advantage of, they reduce their efforts to balance out the system and not be "suckered" into doing all the work. Social psychologists also cite what they call "diffusion of responsibility" as a reason for social loafing. Diffusion of responsibility reduces individuals' feelings of duty toward a task because they believe others are doing what needs to be done. In this situation, some group members may feel that a task is so complex that they can exert less effort without anyone in the group noticing.

Several other factors influence the effort exerted in group work. For example, several studies show that anonymity is a huge influence on social loafing. If individuals know that their efforts will be identified, they will work harder. People also tend to work harder when they value their group members and their task. If the end result is important to the members of a group, members are less likely to commit social loafing. Social loafing also decreases when group members are friends or attracted to each other, again suggesting that group value contributes to a decline in the phenomenon. On a more extreme note, social loafing can also be thwarted if group members know that an insufficient performance will be met with punishment.

Social loafing is not always a conscious act. Many times people are aware of the fact that they are not putting the maximum effort into a task. People also commit social loafing without knowing that it is happening, however. Many studies show that men are more likely to exhibit social loafing than women, and some studies show that women often do not exhibit social loafing at all. This gender difference is generally attributed to the cognitive theory that holds women are more concerned with collective outcomes than men, who tend to be more individualistic. Cultural variances also play a role in social loafing. In the United States, culture tends to be more independent and individualistic, which can negatively affect individuals' ability to work in groups. In China, however, the culture dictates a collective mentality, resulting in individuals working well in groups.

Bibliography

Dean, Dr. Jeremy. "What Is Social Loafing? Causes, Examples, and How to Prevent It." PsyBlog, 26 Sept. 2024, www.spring.org.uk/2024/09/social-loafing-psychology.php. Accessed 27 Oct. 2024.

Grace, Jodi, and James A. Shepperd. "Social Loafing." Encyclopedia of Social Psychology. Vol. 2. Ed. Roy F. Baumeister and Kathleen D. Vohs. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2007. 909–10. Print.

Hockenbury, Don H., and Sandra E. Hockenbury. Psychology. New York: Macmillan, 2002. 529–32. Print.

Krumm, Dianne. Psychology at Work: An Introduction to Industrial/Organizational Psychology. New York: Macmillan, 2001. 78–79. Print.

Smith, Brian M., Natalie A. Kerr, Michael J. Markus, and Mark F. Stasson. "Individual Differences in Social Loafing: Need for Cognition as a Motivator in Collective Performance." Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice. Radford, 2001. PDF file.