“Social Loafing During Preparation for Performance Situations: The Preloafing Effect”
Abstract. Social loafing describes the loss of motivation and effort within group situations. The study proposed to answer the question of whether social loafing also affects preparation for a group task. It was expected that participants preparing for an individual task would show a better quality of preparation than participants anticipating a group task. Furthermore, the correlation between social loafing during preparation (preloafing) and social loafing during the main task was examined. In a pilot study conducted first, preloafing was found in a sample of male students. The main study showed the same effect for females on a grip-strength endurance task. Contrary to expectations, the correlation between preloafing and social loafing was only moderate. Theoretical implications of the phenomenon are discussed.
Keywords: social loafing, group processes, motivation, group performance, preparation
Reference: Kleinert, J. and Ohlert, J. (2013). Social Loafing During Preparation for Performance Situations: The Preloafing Effect. Social Psychology, 44, 231-237. doi: 10.1027/1864-9335/a000107
Abstract. Social loafing describes the loss of motivation and effort within group situations. The study proposed to answer the question of whether social loafing also affects preparation for a group task. It was expected that participants preparing for an individual task would show a better quality of preparation than participants anticipating a group task. Furthermore, the correlation between social loafing during preparation (preloafing) and social loafing during the main task was examined. In a pilot study conducted first, preloafing was found in a sample of male students. The main study showed the same effect for females on a grip-strength endurance task. Contrary to expectations, the correlation between preloafing and social loafing was only moderate. Theoretical implications of the phenomenon are discussed.
Keywords: social loafing, group processes, motivation, group performance, preparation
Reference: Kleinert, J. and Ohlert, J. (2013). Social Loafing During Preparation for Performance Situations: The Preloafing Effect. Social Psychology, 44, 231-237. doi: 10.1027/1864-9335/a000107
Under certain circumstances, people reduce their effort and motivation when performing in a group. Social loafing describes the loss of motivation and effort within group situations (Harkins, Latane & Williams, 1979). Kleinert & Ohlert (2012) investigated whether social loafing is already present when individuals prepare for a group task. Since previous research has only focused on social loafing during group performances, they have decided to look at social loafing in preparation for the task. They coined the term preloafing (from preparation loafing) to describe this phenomenon. The researchers hypothesized that there would be differences in the preparation quality of people working with group tasks and with individual tasks – that people prepare less well for a group task than an individual task. The task for testing social loafing was about pressing two handles (of a device) together for 45 seconds to measure grip-strength endurance. Those in the group task condition were told that the aim is to exert as much power during 45 seconds as possible for the group, since their results would be subsequently combined with the performance of the other people in the group. Meanwhile the task for testing preloafing involved the Cognitrone test, which measured the concentration ability of the participants for a period of 7 minutes. The one being tested was the number of completed items within the 7 minutes. Results reveal that preloafing was only driven by the female participants. Male participants showed no reduction in their efforts in the group condition of the Cognitrone test. Correlations between efforts during preparation and the main task were also very heterogenous and rather small.
Maybe it seemed like the two tasks (grip-strength
endurance test and Cognitrone test) were too different from each other, with a
cognitive task being used as preparation for physical performance (since the
Cognitrone test was administered first before the grip-strength endurance
test). I think it was the matter of the task itself. It would be hard to
propose an experiment testing preloafing or social loafing in the context of
academic tasks like research works because as a student that is when I
experience being loafed by my groupmates. But, depending on the type of your
groupmates, it could be a case of either “many hands make light work” or “paradise
for parasites”. Future research could compare the goals and habits of those who
loaf around and those who do the actual work, and what’s the common goal for
these two when working in a group. The phenomenon of loafing could also be
related to procrastination. Do those who do the work (and become loafed around
by their groupmates) tend to plan and start the work early? Also, isn’t it the
case that people tend to loaf around especially when they know that there are
other people to “catch” the work when the deadline approaches? Maybe there is a
pattern that loafers tend to cram in general, even for individual tasks. Lastly,
the amount of efforts vary in individual tasks and group tasks perhaps because
of the fact that you need to really exert effort in individual tasks since if
you don’t, no one is really there to have your back. We know that personal deficiencies
when you are working in a group would be compensated by the other members of
the group.
With regards to motivation, the influence of the value of the task is also important to look at when studying the concept of loafing. People might put more efforts in situations which they know would yield good outcomes. In short, they might work harder when they know that the task has a certain value for them. There is a sense of doing it for a purpose, like how there is a sense of studying hard and exerting effort at papers (regardless if it’s individual or by group) because you know you’re working hard to be in the dean’s list. On the other hand, we tend to be demotivated if we are not able to identify the personal benefit of the task and of exerting effort.
Loafing is also different when your efforts are identifiable. In an experiment by Harkins, Latane, and Williams (1979) with pickle packers as participants, it was implied that loafing would be encouraged when output was not identifiable. The pickle packers stuffed the ill-sized pickles into the jars, despite of their jobs involving picking only the right-sized pickles for packing. The researchers explained that this happened because the jars just went into a common hopper before reaching the quality-control section – output was not identifiable. This is related to social facilitation. When we know that we would not be held accountable for our efforts, there is a likelihood for loafing to occur. We could get away with not exerting effort. However, in social facilitation, arousal happens as we know that efforts are being evaluated. In real life scenarios, especially in academic settings, maybe social loafing is less likely to happen in group works if professors really see to it that all members of the group would be contributing substantially by evaluating the contributions of each of the members. In this way, social facilitation also happens. And there would be less free riders since they would know the consequences of free-riding – low grades.
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