Preview

Social Loafing and Social Facilitation

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1983 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Social Loafing and Social Facilitation
This experiment was conducted to determine whether individuals perform better working alone or in a group. The study was to see whether social loafing or social facilitation; two major research topics amongst social psychologists, occurs in certain situations, and the effects on a persons? ability to learn and perform. Through careful research and experimentation it was concluded that social facilitation supported the hypothesis, and social loafing did not.

The Effects of Social Loafing and Social Facilitation in Certain Situations A widespread topic among social psychologists is the influence of groups on individual behaviour. A common question most researchers ask is whether working in a group affects the performance of the individuals. Most researchers can?t answer that question, because it all depends on the individual himself, and the situation they are in. Based on that question, researchers identified two well-known theories: social loafing and social facilitation.

Social loafing and social facilitation affect people in different ways. Whether it?s their learning abilities or how they perform, some situations will result in different outcomes for certain individuals. In specific situations, whether it is being watched by others, being timed, working in a group or alone everyone acts a certain way.

Social loafing occurs when a person working in a group doesn?t perform to the best of their ability and contributes less ideas and effort then the others working in that group. (Gagne & Zuckerman, 1999 p. 525) A common reason as to why a person would do this is because they think the group will not be marked individually, therefore putting less effort in the group because he knows he will get the same mark as the rest of the other members.

Social facilitation occurs when people put fourth more effort while working in a group then being on their own. (Gagne et al. 1999 p. 525) A general motive for this is usually because of the stimulation one receives from the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In sociology, I learned how social influence plays a big role. It exerts group control over individuals’ decisions. Although facing the back of the elevator was an uncomfortable behavior, students were influenced by peer pressure and led evidence that social influence function in everyday situations. This connected me to the idea of groupthink. The results of this experiment demonstrated groupthink because of bringing a high degree of conformity among members.…

    • 779 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Latane, B., Williams, K., & Harkins, S. (1979). Many Hands Make Light The Work: The Causes and Consequences of Social Loafing. JPSP , 822-832.…

    • 3165 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    The intent of this paper is to discuss the dynamics of a group of coworkers and peers form the perspective of social psychology. The group will be analyzed in relation to the formation of norms, roles, hierarchy, potential groupthink, and any communication patterns as observed.…

    • 1273 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Hawthorne studies examined employees in a social context, proving that “the performance of employees is influenced by their surroundings and by the people that they are working with as much as by their own innate abilities” (The Economist, 2008). The results of the Hawthorne studies pertain to human resource by revealing that emotions and feelings -- the emotions and feelings associated with working in a certain group environment or for a specific employer, can alter an employee’s work productivity. The Hawthorne studies, along with comparable industry research, helped to prompt the human relations movement by providing new insights into human behavior. “It studied the influence that informal groups can have upon employee performance and behavior. It also focused atten­tion on the necessity for managers to improve their communications and to be more sensitive to the needs and feelings of their subordinates” (Indiana University, n.d.).…

    • 330 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    explains why people behave differently than normal when they are amongst a group of people.…

    • 273 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    week 5

    • 327 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Identify any associated phenomenon with your selected behaviors, such as social facilitation, social loafing, or groupthink.…

    • 327 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Psy 400 Portfolio

    • 464 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Purpose: To provide you with an opportunity to experience a group setting and analyze how the presence of others substantially influences the behaviors of its members through social facilitation.…

    • 464 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tuckman's Group Formation

    • 689 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Am I right? I feel that most times than not there are always a social loafer in the group. Since the teacher assigned the groups, I feel that she combined the workers with the off-task workers together. In particular, in the group I watched the dysfunctional person was the social loafer. They didn’t care about the project and knew the leaders were going to get the project done, so he just sat on his phone.…

    • 689 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    A false impression of what most other people are thinking or feeling, or how they are responding…

    • 1194 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Throwing Away Trash

    • 652 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Social loafing occurs when people work together and when their “output” is combined leaving no one to feel solely accountable for the completed task. Social loafing occurs on many different types of tasks including ones requiring physical effort (Szymanski & Harkins, 1987). Due to social loafing effect we hypothesized that people in groups would leave behind more trash then groups of one to two people. We wanted to see if larger groups left more trash thinking that either they would not be held accountable for it, or that their friends would pick up their slack. In a clapping experiment it was found that identifiability is a key aspect to social loafing which we believed would come into play during this experiment (Williams, Harkins, & Latané, 1981). Our hypothesis was that groups of three or more people will leave more trash then individuals in correlation with social loafing.…

    • 652 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    There are four main groups that influence us greatly, such as social facilitation, social loafing, bystander effect, and group polarization. Such as Social Facilitation, it means that your behavior in front of the presence of others helps you be better at it then if you were alone. Group polarization is influenced by others reason being is that you already believe something they believe in but they encourage you or influence you to believe in it more without telling you too. Social loafing is when you are in groups and knowing you have team members that the work is mainly going to be evenly divided so you tend to overlook the whole assignment given from the teacher that was supposed to be completed together as a team. The Bystander effect…

    • 540 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Psychology Study

    • 745 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Describe social loafing. When is it likely to occur? When is it not as likely to occur?…

    • 745 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    As the saying goes “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts", when we are in a group, there is a tendency for the people to exert less effort to achieve a goal than when working alone. I strongly believe that social loafing appears in one way or the other within every team. Based on my experience, i have seen so many social loafers who benefit from the work of other individuals in the group, without exerting any of their potential.…

    • 499 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Health and Social Care

    • 1395 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Interacting and communicating is different in group situation compared with interacting in one to one situations. Normally people are more controlled and formal in group interactions than in one to one…

    • 1395 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Jackson, J. M., & Williams, K. D. (1985). Social loafing on difficult tasks: Working collectively can improve performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 937-942.…

    • 2958 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays