Leads to Poor Team Spirit
: If few members become lazy and reluctant, making the least contribution in the group, the whole team feels demotivated and demoralized. Portrays Negativity: The escaping attitude of social loafers spread negativity in the whole group.
Social facilitation and social loafing are two closely related terms. Both are
based on the influence of others’ presence in our performance
, and both are a part of group behavior. … Both are based on the influence of others’ presence in our performance, and both are a part of group behavior.
Social loafing refers to the concept that people are
prone to exert less effort when working collectively as part of a group compared to performing a task alone
. … When everyone does not put in their full amount of effort because they are part of a group, this can lead to reduced productivity.
Social loafing has
a diminishing effect on group performance
in contrast to individual performance (Ying et al., 2014) and is defined as ‘the reduction in motivation and effort when individuals work collectively compared with when they work individually’ (Karau & Williams, 1993, p. 681).
Gender and social loafing
In 1985, Gabrenya, Wang, and Latane found that in both Chinese and American cultures, social loafing
varies between men and women
. Women expressed less social loafing than men across different cultures.
Informational Influence (AO1/AO3)
An example of this is if
someone was to go to a posh restaurant for the first time, they may be confronted with several forks and not know which one to use
, so they might look to a near by person to see what fork to use first.
Research scholars determined that social loafing
leads to a loss in productivity for organizations
so this makes social loafing an important factor to understand for firm effectiveness.
Restaurant employees failing to put in equal amounts of effort
is an example of social loafing. If there is a small number of customers present then all the servers need not work even if they are all on duty, so lazier workers will let the ‘in’ group take on all the responsibility.
In addition, social facilitation is thought to involve three factors:
physiological factors (drive and arousal), cognitive factors (distraction and attention)
, and affective factors (anxiety and self-presentation).
Definitions: Social facilitation is a change in individual effort and subsequent performance in the real or imagined presence of either co-actors or an audience. Social loafing is
a reduction in individual effort when acting as part of a group or collective
.
Diffusion of responsibility
: People are more likely to engage in social loafing if they feel less personally accountable for a task, and know their individual efforts have little impact on the overall outcome. … The larger the group, however, the less individual effort people will extend.
- Implement peer and team reviews early. …
- Provide guidance on how to be a better team member. …
- Promote self-reflection that leads to self-improvement. …
- Empower team members with open communication.
The problem with social loafing—the tendency of certain members of a group to get by with less effort than if they were working alone and who operate under the assumption that others’ efforts will cover their shortfalls—is that it has
the potential to negatively impact work product, damage professional relationships,
…
How does the presence of others affect performance?
The presence of others
adds to arousal
and when combined with the arousal arising from a difficult or unfamiliar task results in stress and consequent poor performance. A dominant response is simply the response that is most likely to occur in the presence of the given array of stimuli.
Summary. Sociologists agree that an understanding of social control, or
efforts to ensure conformity to the norms
, is essential to understanding how society functions. Self-control is an individual quality, trait, or characteristic.
3 THREE TYPES OF SOCIAL INFLUENCE. There are three types of influence that a social presence can have on a consumer:
utilitarian, value-expressive, and informational
(Burnkrant & Cousineau, 1975; Deutsch & Gerard, 1955; Park & Lessig, 1977).
