Social Loafing
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Social loafing is defined as the tendency of individuals to decrease productivity during tasks that requires group effort (Murphy, Wayne, Liden & Erdogan, 2003). Many factors have been linked to influence working groups. Identification or de-individualization and self-beliefs of individuals can lead to negative outcomes resulting in productivity losses (Charbonnier, Huguet, Brauer & Montel, 1998). The expectations of co-workers, task complexity and distributive justice individuals experience when working in groups or teams are also related to the anonymity and complexity to measured individualistic efforts. The de-individualization process can happen consciously or unconsciously and the level of anonymity varies according to difficulty of the task at hand (Liden, Wayne, Jaworski & Bennet, 2004).For example a group of high school senior students have decided on a student carwash to raise funds for their senior high school trip. According to the social loafing theory there would be some students who would choose (consciously) not to attend or students that (unconsciously) would lack of when washing cars. A simple task may contribute to reduce performance integrity which will result in a lax attitude towards individual responsibility whereas an increase in performance is predicted in complex tasks (social facilitation).
Social loafing has been studied in relation to productivity losses in group working settings. In western societies where team work based groups are believed to be beneficial to productivity, the cultural dogma contradicts this assumption. Western cultures emphasize and value individualistic traits such assertiveness and sound self-worthiness. Individuals’ self perception of individualization and uniqueness are the module operant behind social loafing (Charboner et al., 1998). For example an individual who believes himself/herself to be unique and more independent than the rest of the group would engage in social loafing more often than those individuals whose core values emphasized interpersonal relationship (Hoon Tan & Li Tan, 2008) thus social loafing falls under the social expectancy theory as an individual’s motivator to achieve a particular goal and this in turn will be largely influenced by the value placed as chief motivator (individualization) and cognitive evaluation of how positive or negative the behavior’s outcome would be (consequences) (Guerin, 1999).
Example-Research
Social loafing’s predominance and its relation to lack of negative social consequences due to anonymity on working groups was studied by Guerin, 1999. Guerin’s hypothesis was that individuals engage on social loafing when negative social consequences are reduced according to the degree of anonymity team-base groups gives to its members. Participants were asked to brainstorm the different uses of a brick within the social acceptance use (to build a house) and to name social unacceptable uses of a brick (to hit someone you dislike). A total of 104 students were divided in two groups; the interaction group (G) and the non interaction group (NG). These two groups were subdivided into four categories, two categories replicating each group’s condition: Individual identifiable group (IIG) and the Individual identifiable non-group (IING), the identifiable anonymous group (IAG) and the Identifiable anonymous non-group (IANG). Those participants in the interaction group were asked to engage in group task to come up with a name for their group and to list a number of items they should all agree to take to a deserted island. Research did this to generate group self-identification and loyalty. After the exercise all members were asked to come up with as many different acceptable and un-acceptable uses of a brick. For those participants in the identifiable anonymous group they were asked to write the name of the group (IAG), for those who were in the individual identifiable group they were asked to write their name group along with their individual name (IIG), the same were asked of those who were never in-group participants. The individual identifiable non-group (IING) were asked to write their name and the anonymous-non-group (IANG) were given the instructions to not write their name anywhere in the list. The results were significant to the research hypothesis; of those in group participants who were also identifiable (IIG) generated the more social acceptable uses of a brick than any other group category. But the individual anonymous group generated a larger percentage uses of the non-social acceptable uses of brick. According to the researcher this difference was mainly due to de-individualization and social loafing are more closely related than once thought. It is important to understand social loafing, social facilitation and de-individualization as factors reflecting one another.
Example - Real-Life
Many times people at work would “slack off’. For example; in an international flight, the passenger load was not heavy, many of them were Mexican tourists coming to the U.S. to buy Christmas presents. These passengers are what are called seasonal passengers, meaning they would only travel once or at the most twice a year. The passengers therefore are not familiar with the different forms the U.S requires to be filled since it seems that every year a different form is added, deleted, and re named or constructed differently. It is the duty of the flight attendants to help and inform the passengers of such changes and help them fill these forms. The night previous to the flight all the crew members stayed late at night. The next morning the crewmembers were very tired from the night before, and none one of them were in the mood to be very helpful, not a very uncommon practice due to the cut into the crew members resting time. The senior flight attendant, another two crewmembers, a woman with not the same seniority as the senior flight attendant and a younger male flight attendant who was very junior were responsible for the flight. The second flight attendant and the junior flight attendant both sat for the most part of the flight and did nothing, the senior flight attendant did not complain for the lack of cooperation. The second female flight attendant decided to tell the senior that she should let the junior crewmember distribute and help the passengers with the customs and immigrations forms, even though she was doing nothing but writing her Christmas cards. In this case social loafing was the result of 1) anonymity of the crewmembers to the passengers (all flight attendants look alike mentality) and 2) the self-worthiness experienced by the second flight attendant (her status v. the junior flight attendant) The senior flight attendant did not follow her co-worker’s suggestion and decided to finish taking care of the passengers before landing. The senior flight attendant’s decision somehow bothered the female flight attendant and she let everyone in the flight know her disapproval and that all should condemn the male flight attendant “lazy” behavior elevating her own status of worthiness.
Social loafing is a complex phenomenon that can be misunderstood when there is a discrepancy between injunctive norms and subjective norms creating cognitive dissonance, for example the influence of the western cultures places upon the individual to become more and more individualistic and independent is highly in contrast when asking individuals to cooperate and output equal amount of effort when working in team-based groups.
References
Charbonnier, E., Huguet, P., Brauer, M., & Monte, J. (1998). Social loafing and self-beliefs: People’s collective effort depends on the extent to which they distinguished themselves as better than others. Social Behavior and Personality, 26(4), 329-340. doi:10.2224/sbp.1998.26.4.329.
Guerin, Bernard. (1999) Social behaviors as determined by different arrangements of social consequences: Social loafing, social facilitation, deindividuation, and modified social loafing. The Psychological Record,49(4), 565-578.
Liden, R., Wayne, S., Jaworski, R., & Bennett, N. (2004). Social loafing: A field of investigation. Journal of Management, 30(2), 285-304. doi: 10.1016/j.jm.2003.02.002.
Murphy, S., Wayne, S., Liden, R., & Erdogan, B. (2003). Understanding social loafing: The role of justice perceptions and exchange relationships. Human Relationships, 56(1), 61-83. doi: 10.11777/0018726703056001450.
Tan, H., & Tan, M. (2008). Organizational citizenship behavior and social loafing: The role of personality, motives, and contextual factors. Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied, 142(1), 89-108. doi:10.3200/JRLP.142.1.89-112.
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