Social Loafing Example and Ringelman’s Effect

What is social loafing?

Social loafing is when people put less effort into performing a task as part of a group than they would if working alone. Because groups tend to become more lenient with their members. Social loafing is a common phenomenon that decreases employee motivation and organizational effectiveness.

Many studies have found that people often feel less committed to a group when they’re part of the crowd than when they’re on their own. In other words, people tend to be more proactive and engaged when it’s just them or only.

Social Loafing and Ringelman Effect

The French agricultural engineer, Max Ringelmann,  did an experiment to establish social loafing causes when studying group performance. He found that groups (of people and animals) did not meet their potential – meaning that the sum of the maximum output from each individual was not reached.

The Ringelmann effect is a phenomenon that occurs in groups of people that limits the amount of effort each member exerts, and this reduces individual productivity.

According to the Ringelmann effect, it’s hard for people to put in the same amount of effort when they’re unsure if their efforts will contribute anything. It often happens when there are many people on a team, and not everyone is contributing equally.

This phenomenon can often be attributed to two things: uncertainty about achieving something significant or feeling like one’s participation is optional.

Ringelmann Experiment Social Loafing

The French engineer Max Ringelmann, who is also referred to as the father of social loafing research, believed that individuals would put more effort into tasks in groups because they were not being watched.

The history of individual effort reduction research in group tasks started with a French agricultural engineer named Max Ringelmann (1861-1931).

Ringelmann was interested in how farmworkers could increase their productivity. Ringelmann found that while groups outperform individuals, groups typically do not perform to the degree they could if they operated at full ability.

In the Ringelmann Effect experiment, he found that if two individuals separately could pull 100 units together, they would only pull 186. The same principle applies to several people pulling as well; eight people working together could only pull 392, half of their sum potential of 800.

Ringelmann (1913) linked this phenomenon to two aspects: teamwork losses and motivational losses.

He claimed that the failure of coordination—”the lack of simultaneity of their efforts” (p. 9)—was the main cause of social loafing, but also admitted that, in certain situations, employees lose motivation because each man “trusts his neighbor to make the desired effort” (p. 10).

Causes of Social Loafing

What are the causes of Soal Loafing in teams?

The power of expectations to impact social loafing has been shown in many different ways. The importance of task meaningfulness is also evident. The more individuals feel a sense of responsibility for the task at hand, the less likely they will be to engage in social loafing. Besides group culture– if there is a strong team atmosphere that encourages participation and collaboration, then it can be said that there will be less chance for people to indulge in this type of behavior.

Lack of a sense of individual responsibility

There is  something about the personal responsibility that evaporates according to team size.” Ringelmann’s experiment with a tug-of-war team showed how individual responsibility was of utmost importance, and yet this sense of personal responsibility was lost when in larger groups.

The best sports coaches know how to keep their teams together while still motivating each player individually and encourage them all to work collectively for the greater good. They also know when it is necessary to give players space to ‘let off steam’ too.

Size of the Team/Group

In small groups, people are more likely to believe that their contributions are more significant and would thus make a greater contribution. The larger the team, however, the less individual effort people can make.

Less Accountability

As a result of feeling less personally accountable for the task, people are more likely to loaf and not put in as much effort if they know their individual efforts have little impact on the overall outcome. This is often used to explain why people are less likely to help someone in need when others are present.

Motivation or Lack of Motivation

It’s often said that people work better in groups than as individuals. That may not always be the case! People who are less motivated by a task are more likely to engage in social loafing when they’re part of a group.

If the Task is Too Easy

You want to find the balance between something that will challenge the group but not be so difficult that people give up before they’ve started. You might worry about exceeding expectations when you think about your project; however, if it’s too hard or complicated, then it’ll be more likely for someone to get frustrated and quit.

Shared Rewards

if everyone gets the same reward, people rationalize their hard work as “Why should I work harder than everyone else? If we all get the same reward, why should I work harder than anyone else?”

To a certain degree, this is a natural reaction, particularly if the social loafing has already crept into the group’s ethos. Those who continue to work hard can become resentful and join the loafers if their colleagues continue to loaf.

Social Loafing in Teams/Social Loafing in Sport

This is when people work less hard on a group project than they would if working alone. An example of this is found in sports teams. Two soccer players running to the ball will be faster than three soccer players.

How to Prevent Social Loafing

• Through collaboration with each team member with assigned meaningful tasks. For example, even the worst social loafer can be allocated to keeping minutes of meetings and distributing them to have no place to hide.
• Social loafing can be reduced by establishing individual responsibility, limiting free-riding, promoting team loyalty, and assigning separate roles to each team member.
• Assign separate and distinct responsibilities to each member of the team. Without specific objectives, groups and team members wander even more quickly into the territory of social loafing. Setting specific expectations allows community members to be more involved and to minimize social loafing.
• Keep communication open.  Make sure you’re checking in with each person in the group to make sure they understand the project and why it matters. Allow for private communications so team members can voice concerns at an individual level and not involve everyone unnecessarily

Social Facilitation and Social Loafing

Social facilitation is the tendency for a person to perform better on a task when other people are watching. This form of motivation is extrinsic motivation because it comes from outside sources, such as rewards.

Compared to their results, when alone, their individual contributions appear to be better for basic or well-tested tasks and worse for complicated or new ones in the presence of others.

The concept of social loafing explains when people invest less effort when working in groups than when working individually.

Social Loafing Example

A good example of Social Loafing is when individuals feel that their efforts or voice don’t matter.  An individual’s voice could easily be lost in a large group of people, and they may choose to take it easy and watch everyone else work.

This is why many individuals don’t volunteer for projects or become leaders. It’s also why half the American population doesn’t vote during presidential elections – their voice is so small that it won’t make a difference anyway.

Example of Social Loafing