One of the things I absolutely abhorred in school and college was group projects.
I am a recovering perfectionist today. But back then I wanted all my projects to be the best.
I would often find myself stuck with having to do most of the work while my teammates dragged along.
My teammates’ lack of effort could possibly be coming from the fact that I wasn’t the easiest to work with. But it irked me to no end when others free loaded on my work.
It was only years later when I was coaching an executive MBA class and I saw similar patterns that I understood the concept of social loafing.
Social Loafing (also called the Free-Rider theory) is the tendency of people to put in way lesser effort when they are part of a group than when they are working alone.
This could mean that some individuals put in less effort because:
- They assume someone else will get it done because of lack of individual accountability.
- They feel someone else can do a better job and they’d rather let them do it.
- They don’t want to feel like they are being taken advantage of by ending up doing more work (sucker effect) they hang back and don’t volunteer.
- They feel they may not get credit for the work as it is a group task and hence individual contribution is not measurable.
Social loafing in short makes the low performers put in even less effort than they normally would. On the other hand, it demotivates the high performers into doing less because they feel they would not get their due credit.
What are some occasions that you have experienced social loafing? How have you responded to it?