Key Takeaways
- Social loafing means people put in less effort when they are in groups.
- Smaller groups help people put in more effort than bigger groups.
- People who feel responsible for a task are less likely to engage in social loafing.
Social loafing describes the tendency of individuals to put forth less effort when they are part of a group. Because all group members are pooling their efforts to achieve a common goal, each member contributes less than they would if they were individually responsible.
Here we discuss how researchers have studied social loafing and what we’ve learned from these psychology experiments. We also talk about the reasons why people may reduce their effort when in a group, as well as how to reduce this effect.
Example of Social Loafing
Before discussing the research, it’s helpful to fully understand what social loafing is. Here’s an example to consider.
Imagine that you’re a student. If your teacher assigns you a project, you may break it down into workable steps and start it right away. You’re responsible for the entire assignment, so you begin taking the actions necessary to complete it.
Now imagine that, instead of it being a solo project, your teacher has assigned you to work with 10 other students. Since you are part of a group, the social loafing tendency suggests that you would put less effort into the project.
Instead of taking responsibility for certain tasks, for instance, you might assume that another group member will take care of them. In some cases, the other members of the group may assume the same, and you end up getting stuck doing the entire assignment yourself.
Ringelmann’s Rope-Pulling Experiments
One of the first experiments in social loafing was conducted in 1913 by French agricultural engineer, Max Ringelmann. Ringelmann asked participants to pull on a rope both alone and in groups. He found that when part of a group, people made less of an effort than when working individually.
In 1974, a group of researchers replicated Ringlemann’s experiment, with a few small changes. One panel of participants was consistent with Ringelmann’s original study and contained small groups of subjects. A second panel consisted of only one real participant; the rest were confederates who merely pretended to pull the rope.
Researchers found that groups containing all real participants experienced the largest declines in performance. This suggested that the losses were linked to motivational factors rather than group coordination problems.
Group dynamics cause all sorts of interesting outcomes and behaviors that you might not see outside of a large group. For example, deindividuation is the idea that you are much more likely to exhibit behaviors outside the norm if you are part of a large group exhibiting those behaviors.
Additional Social Loafing Experiments
Researchers continue to study social loafing to learn more about it, including whether certain factors can influence a person’s level of effort when in a group. In a 2005 study, for example, it was discovered that group size can have a powerful impact on group performance.
In this study, half of the groups consisted of four people while the other half consisted of eight. Researchers found that people extended greater individual effort when they were in smaller groups.
This study also found that when group participants worked on a problem while seated at the same table together versus communicating through computers, they felt greater pressure to look busy even when they were not.
In a 2013 study, researchers added to our knowledge bank by finding that the personality traits of group members may impact social loafing as well. This piece of research found that when a team was high in conscientiousness and agreeableness, members tended to compensate for social loafing, resulting in greater team performance.
Research published in 2016 further suggests that social loafing is also present in online communities. It proposes that one of the reasons people may not participate much in online groups, being “lurkers” instead of active participants, is because of this effect.
Causes of Social Loafing
Those of us who’ve ever worked as part of a group have undoubtedly experienced this psychological phenomenon firsthand. And those of us who’ve ever led groups have also likely felt frustrated at the lack of effort that group members sometimes put forth.
Why does social loafing occur? Psychologists have come up with a few possible explanations:
- Motivation (or lack thereof): People who are less motivated by a task are more likely to engage in social loafing when they are part of a group.
- Diffusion of responsibility: People are more likely to engage in social loafing if they feel less personally accountable for a task and know that their efforts have little impact on the overall outcome. This concept is also often used to explain the bystander effect, or the tendency to be less likely to help a person in need when others are present.
- Group size: In small groups, people are more likely to feel that their efforts are more important and will, therefore, contribute more. The larger the group, however, the less individual effort people will exert.
- Expectations: If it is expected that other people in a group will slack off, a person will probably do the same since they don’t want to get stuck doing all of the work. On the other hand, if in a group of high-achievers who seem to be in control of everything, a person might also be more likely to kick back and let others handle the work.
How to Reduce Social Loafing
Social loafing can have a serious impact on group performance and efficiency. However, some actions can be taken to help minimize its effects, such as:
- Assigning individual tasks and responsibilities
- Creating small groups with individual accountability of each member
- Establishing clear standards and rules
- Evaluating individual and group performance
- Highlighting achievements of individual members
Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
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