Individuals are less likely to Contribute in Group Projects Because of Social Loafing

There had been countless times that I had struggled with group projects that had me scrambling because I had been the only active member that was trying to get the project done. It’s a headache, but as long as I got the job done it didn’t really matter if I had help or not. This is why I have dreaded group work for years, the other people in the group were dead weight for me to drag, and it wasn’t long till I had to put my foot down and do something. It did keep me wondering why it was so, though.

It’s what people call Social Loafing, I found out. Social loafing refers to the concept that people are prone to exert less effort on a task if they are in a group versus when they work alone. We are usually assigned to groups because of the notion that two heads are better than one. It’s like when you pool the other ideas and talents of other people, the project will turn out better. However in some groups, there is a tendency on the part of the participants to contribute less to the group’s goal than if they were doing the same task themselves.

For example, imagine that your teacher assigned you to work on a class project with a group consisting of eight members. If it were an individual project, you would have started on it right away, but since you are part of a group, the social loafing tendency makes it likely that you would put less effort into the project because there are seven other people in the group who can pull your weight.

This is seem as one of the main reasons groups are sometimes less productive than the combined performance of their members working as individuals. Social loafing can be explained by the “sucker effect”, which is an individual’s reduction in effort in order to avoid pulling the weight of a fellow group member. And, the larger the group, the more likely it is that social loafing will occur!

Social loafing has negative consequence for both the group and the individuals in the group. The group dynamic is affected when certain individuals are seen as weak contributors to the group purpose. It tends to split the group and fosters a lack of cohesion. For example, if only five of the eight members of a team are doing most of the work, it will often create an ‘in’ group (those members that are working hard) and an ‘out’ group (those members that are not contributing as much). Resentment can easily build between the two factions, causing less productivity and more emotional tension than a cohesive group would experience.

Individuals in the group can also be affected by social loafing. When there is a disparity of effort between members of a group, individuals start to gauge their own effort based on what others are doing instead of maintaining a standard of excellence toward achieving the goal. This lowers the level of satisfaction for the task in all members of the group. For example, if a motivated team member repeatedly feels others are relying on them to do most of the work, they might deliberately reduce their workload or even stop collaborating with group members because they no longer want to feel exploited by the less productive members.

What do you think? How can we minimize social loafing among groups? Can we avoid it at all? And how is it affecting the sanctity of group dynamics? Personally speaking, as long as all the members are motivated with the success of the project and the tasks are divided with equal worth and equal challenge, the less likely it is that social loafing will happen. I want to hear what you have to say as well!

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