A client of mine once told me “I hate working in groups”, and when I asked why, he replied, “because I always end up doing all the work, while others do nothing”. aside from individual differences (and all-or-nothing mentality), this is a fairly common experience. Spend half an hour browsing post on Reddit, and you will find countless examples.
Dobelli (2013) describes the findings of a French engineer, Maximilian Ringelmann, who studied the individual contributions of men pulling a rope. He found that when two men pulled together, instead of using the expected 100% of their strength, they each used 93%. When three of them were pulling, it was 85%, and when eight of them pulled together, it was 49%.
This phenomenon is called social loafing or Ringelmann effect, which is the tendency for individuals to put forth less effort when working in a group than when working alone ( Latané, Williams, & Harkins, 1979). In other words, people have a weaker participation when working in teams.
Examples can be observed in any group activity, at school or at work, in artistic projects or in sports, where individual contribution is not noticeable. This is why you can see it in rowers but not in relay race (Dobelli, 2013).
According to Shi, Shao and Wang (2018), there are five independent variables contribute to this phenomenon. Harkins and Petty (1982) suggest that when work-difficulty levels are high and individual contributions are unique, assessors feel challenged and believe that the team needs their input, making social loafing unlikely to occur. In contrast, Kerr and Bruun (1981) propose that when an individual perceives their contribution as nonessential to group performance, their effort will decrease, leading to social loafing. Harkins and Szymanski (1989) suggest that when assessors feel their work performance can be compared and evaluated by others, social loafing is less likely to occur. Additionally, Shepperd and Wright (1989) posit that a lack of incentive results in the existence of social loafing. Lastly, Karau and Williams (1993) suggest that large team sizes decentralize responsibility, resulting in decreased charges that individuals are required to afford and ultimately leading to social loafing.
Karau and Williams (1993) proposed several strategies to help prevent social loafing, such as keeping teams small, assigning tasks to specific individuals, and providing feedback on performance. Leaders can also establish clear goals and expectations for the group and hold members accountable for their contributions. Creating a positive team climate through promoting open communication, collaboration, and mutual respect can also reduce social loafing. By using these strategies, leaders can improve group productivity and motivation, and reduce resentment among group members.
Additionally, cognitive-behavioral therapy can address individual underlying factors that contribute to social loafing, such as low self-efficacy or motivation.
Dobelli, R. (2013). The art of thinking clearly. Sceptre.
Harkins, S. G., & Petty, R. E. (1982). Effects of Task Difficulty and Task Uniqueness on Social Loafing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43(6), 1214-1229.
Harkins, S. G., & Szymanski, K. (1989). Social loafing and group evaluation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56(6), 934–941. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.56.6.934
Karau, S. J., & Williams, K. D. (1993). Social loafing: A meta-analytic review and theoretical integration. Journal of personality and social psychology, 65(4), 681.
Latané, B., Williams, K., & Harkins, S. (1979). Many hands make light the work: The causes and consequences of social loafing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37(6), 822–832. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.37.6.822
Shepperd, J. A., & Wright, R. A. (1989). Individual contributions to a collective effort: An incentive analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 15(2), 141–149. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167289152001
Shih, C. H., Shao, C. C., & Wang, Y. H. (2018). Study of social loafing and employee creativity. In Innovative Mobile and Internet Services in Ubiquitous Computing: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Innovative Mobile and Internet Services in Ubiquitous Computing (IMIS-2017) (pp. 821-830). Springer International Publishing.
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