Social loafing

In social psychology, social loafing is the phenomenon of a person exerting less effort to achieve a goal when he or she works in a group than when working alone. 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 accidental coordination problems that groups sometimes experience. In social psychology, social loafing is the phenomenon of a person exerting less effort to achieve a goal when he or she works in a group than when working alone. 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 accidental coordination problems that groups sometimes experience. Research on social loafing began with rope pulling experiments by Ringelmann, who found 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 his or her effort will not matter to the group. The French professor of agricultural engineering called Max Ringelman demonstrated what “Social Loafing” was in the 1890’s. Ringelman who was also considered one of the founders of Social Psychology , made people pull on ropes separately the in groups, and he measured and compared how hard they pulled. After collecting the results he realized 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 his or her effort will not matter to the group.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 accidental coordination problems that groups sometimes experience. The first known research on the social loafing effect began in 1913 with Max Ringelmann's study. He found that, when he asked a group of men to pull on a rope, they did not pull as hard collectively as they did when each was pulling alone. This research did not distinguish whether this was the result of the individuals in a group putting in less effort or of poor coordination within the group. In 1974, Alan Ingham, James Graves, and colleagues replicated Ringelmann's experiment using two types of group: 1) Groups with real participants in groups of various sizes (consistent with Ringelmann's setup) or 2) Pseudo-groups with only one real participant. In the pseudo-groups, the researchers' assistants only pretended to pull on the rope. The results showed a decrease in the participants' performance. Groups of participants who all exerted effort exhibited the largest declines. Because the pseudo-groups were isolated from coordination effects (since the participant's confederates did not physically pull the rope), Ingham proved that communication alone did not account for the effort decrease, and that motivational losses were the more likely cause of the performance decline. In contrast with Ringelmann's first findings, Bibb Latané, et al., replicated previous social loafing findings while demonstrating that the decreased performance of groups was attributable to reduced individual effort, as distinct from a deterioration due to coordination. They showed this by blindfolding male college students while making them wear headphones that masked all noise. They then asked them to shout both in actual groups and pseudogroups in which they shouted alone but believed they were shouting with others. When subjects believed one other person was shouting, they shouted 82 percent as intensely as they did alone, but with five others, their effort decreased to 74 percent. Latané, et al., concluded that increasing the number of people in a group diminished the relative social pressure on each person: 'If the individual inputs are not identifiable the person may work less hard. Thus if the person is dividing up the work to be performed or the amount of reward he expects to receive, he will work less hard in groups.' In a 1993 meta-analysis, Karau and Williams proposed the Collective Effort Model (CEM), which is used to generate predictions. The CEM integrates expectancy theories with theories of group-level social comparison and social identity to account for studies that examine individual effort in collective settings. From a psychological state, it proposes that Expectancy multiplied by Instrumentality multiplied by Valence of Outcome produces the resulting Motivational Force. Karau, et al., concluded that social loafing occurred because there was usually a stronger perceived contingency between individual effort and valued outcomes when working individually. When working collectively, other factors frequently determine performance, and valued outcomes are also divided among all group members. All individuals are assumed to try to maximize the expected utility of their actions. The CEM also acknowledges that some valued outcomes do not depend on performance. For example, exerting strong effort when working on intrinsically meaningful tasks or with highly respected team members may result in self-satisfaction or approval from the group, even if the high effort had little to no impact on tangible performance outcomes.