What is Social Loafing?
Social loafing is a psychological phenomenon that occurs when an employee puts less effort in a team setting and works effectively as an individual. The reason is the fear of getting less noticeable in teamwork, other members of the team taking credit for their work, and an increase in workload to compensate for someone else’s lack of effort and underperformance in the team.
It leads to diminishing efforts, responsibilities, and accountability among the team members, assuming others will pick up their slack and work for their inefficiency. Individuals may perceive that their contribution is not as valuable or critical to the group’s success. This can lead to them mentally “checking out” or doing the bare minimum.
In some cases, even the reduction in efforts and accountability is done purposely by some team members, assuming that others in the team will compensate for the undone tasks. This as a result affects the enthusiasm and activeness of the efficient individuals in the group and intrigues them to match the lower effort of their peers to avoid doing overwork.
The reason of occurrence of this psychological occurrence can be due to varied reasons such as a lack of adequate leadership in the team, lack of fair recognition and rewards, undefined job roles in the group, bystander effect in which people in the group don’t offer help to people in need assuming that other will help them, etc.
According to Wikipedia reports, the first known research in social loafing was conducted with Maxwell Ringelmann’s study in 1913, named the “Rope-pulling Method”. He conducted this research by asking a group of individuals in a team to pull a rope both individually and in the group. He noticed that people were putting more effort into pulling the rope individually than in a group. However, the report didn’t prove the theory of whether people are intentionally putting in less effort or this was due to poor coordination in the team.
In later years in 1974 and so, other theorists rolled over the concept by conducting experiments in varied ways to reach the conclusion of this psychological phenomenon called “social loafing”.
Social loafing undermines the effectiveness of group work, but with proper management and awareness, it can be minimized to improve team collaboration and productivity.
