Social loafing

More time consuming due to socializing coordination losses, and need for consensus Inhibition of creativity and decision-making processes possibility of groupthink Less powerful evaluation and rewards social loafing or free-riding may occur Less flexibility in cases of replacement, turnover, or transfer... 

The use of teams and team-level rewards can also decrease the motivating power of evaluation and reward systems. If team members are not evaluated for their individual performance, do not believe that their output can be distinguished from the team s, or do not perceive a link between their own performance and their outcomes, firee-riding or social loafing (Albanese and Van Heet 1985 Cartwright 1968 Latane et al. 1979) can occur. In such situations, teams do not perform up to the potential expected from combining individual efforts. 

Harkins, S. G. (1987), Social Loafing and Social Facilitation, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 23, pp. 1-18. 

Latane, B., Williams, K., and Harkins, S. (1979), Many Hands Make Light the Work The Causes and Consequences of Social Loafing, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 37, pp. 822-832. 

There are also situations when people abdicate responsibility to the tool even if they do not trust it. For example, just the fact that the operator knows that computer support is available could in itself lead to complacency (links from node 14, Availability of the computer tool per se, to node 10), in a process equivalent to what some psychologists term social loafing when people work with other people, diffusion of responsibility often takes place [43, 44], Importantly, specific situations with high degrees of uncertainty (node 21), especially when other more reliable sources of information are missing (node 23), may make operators vulnerable and cause them to rely on computer support more than they would normally do, even if they do not trust its reliability. We found evidence for this in our study of CAD use with difficult-to-detect cancers. 

Karau, S.J., WrUiams, K.D. Social loafing a meta-analytic review and theoretical integration. Journal of Personahty and Social Psychology 65, 681-706 (1993)... 

Identifiability Can I be evaluated When subjects were told the sound equipment could measure their individual clapping as well as the team effort, social loafing disappeared (Williams et al., 1981). Thus, when subjects believed their personal effort could be... 

Gabrenya, W. K., Jr., Latane, B., and Wang, Y. E., Social loafing in cross cultural perspective, J. Cross-... 

Harkins, S. G. and Petty, R. E., Effects of task difficulty and task unicjueness on social loafing,... 

Szymanski, K. and Harkins, S. G., Social loafing and self-evaluation with a social standard,. ... 

White, R. W., Motivation reconsidered the concept of competence, Psychol. Rev., 66,297,1959. Williams, K., Harkins, S., and Latane, B., Identifiability as a deterrent to social loafing two cheering experiments, /. Personal. Soc. Psychol, 40,303,1981. 

Here a team realizes its synergistic benefits. Team thinking, team behavior, and team loyalty are the norm. Individuals identify with the team and take pride in team accomplishments. Interdependency and interpersonal trust peak during this stage, so much so that team members cover for one another even without request. Social loafing (Latane et al., 1979) is not a problem, but "burnout" is possible. As illustrated in Figure 17.15, the team leader is inconspicuous, serving as sponsor and consultant by... 

Principle 15 Social loafing can be prevented by increasing personal responsibility, individual accountability, group cohesion, and interdependence. 

It is possible to decrease blind compliance to rules that foster at-risk behavior by manipulating factors found to decrease social loafing. Thus, workplace interventions and action plans need to be implemented with the aim of increasing an individual s perception of individual accountability and personal responsibility, including their sense of group cohesion and interdependence (Chapter 17). 

---