Attitude And Social Cognition — Psychology STD 12 Humanities — Question

Social loafing is a reduction in individual effort when working on a collective task, i.e., one in which outputs are pooled with those of other groups members to become relaxed and become free riders. For example a group of male students are made to clap or cheer loudly to know how much noise people make in social settings. The group size is varied with individuals either made to cheer alone or in a group of two, four or six. The result of the study shows that although the total amount of noise went up as the size immersed, the amount of noise produced by each student dropped. The reasons for such social loafing are:

1. Group members feel less responsible for the overall task being done and exert less effort.
2. Motivation of members reduces because they understand that their contributions will not evaluated on individual basis.
3. There is little or no coordination among members.

The following are the way to reduce social loafing:

1. Marking the efforts of each person discernible.
2. Making people feel that their individual contribution is important.