Working in Groups and Social Loafing

Social loafing is the effect that people will exert less effort if they are working in a collective environment. Working in groups is an integral part of everyday life because it happens in almost every context whether it is sports teams, organizational groups, project groups and even juries. Therefore it is important to understand the underlying factors that influence this construct. The current research composed of 20 participants, investigated the social loafing effect of two working conditions: Coactive and Collective. It was hypothesized that collective groups would have significantly lower scores than coactive and the results supported this prediction strongly as there was a significant difference between the groups. These results have a strong implication that collective work teams are usually more prone to social loafing however; this could be minimized if certain factors such as interaction and complexity of the task were incorporated.

The extent to which Social Loafing occurs for participants completing a brainstorming task Coactively or Collectively

Social loafing is the effect of people exerting less effort when they are working collectively than when they are working coactively (Brickner et al., 1986). The effect of social loafing can occur in many contexts that can be reflected in tasks that require physical effort, cognitive effort and vigilance (Brickner et al., 1986). Létane (1979) suggested that social loafing is mediated by the equal distribution of effort and responsibility amongst a group task performance setting, thus participants held a mindset that they can “hide in the crowd” to avoid the blame for slacking off or even “blending in with the crowd” where they are unable to claim their credit of work. T...

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