Social Loafing

What social loafing is

Social loafing (الكسل الاجتماعي) is the tendency of some individuals to put in less effort when they work in a group than when they work alone, especially when each person’s contribution is not attributed to that person and is not measured separately. It is a concept from social psychology that entered the management literature because of its possible effect on teams. Its experimental measurement is attributed to Bibb Latané, Kipling Williams and Stephen Harkins in a study published in 1979.

The concept concerns the behaviour of individuals within teams. What follows is an explanation of the concept and of its limits. It does not claim that every member of a team loafs, or that group work is less productive than individual work.

Where the concept comes from

The observation goes back to the French agricultural engineer Max Ringelmann, to whom the literature attributes early experiments in pulling and hauling. In them, the average effort of each person fell as the number of people working together rose. We verified that the article “Ringelmann rediscovered: The original article” by Kravitz and Martin exists in the Crossref record. It was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 1986 (volume 50, issue 5, pages 936 to 941). We report no figures or exact dates from Ringelmann’s work, which we cite only through that literature.

The importance of the 1979 study lies in its attempt to distinguish two causes of the fall in an individual’s output in a group. Its title is “Many hands make light the work: The causes and consequences of social loafing”, and it appeared in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (volume 37, issue 6, pages 822 to 832). One cause is coordination: individuals obstruct one another, so their efforts do not combine precisely. The other cause is motivation: the individual puts in less effort. Social loafing is the second. We did not read the text of the study, and we rely on its Crossref record and on secondary summaries for its aim.

Why social loafing happens

The literature attributes the phenomenon to factors that can be summarised as follows. They are proposed explanations and not established facts:

• No individual accountability. If what each person accomplished is not recorded, the person does not feel called to account for a share.
• Spreading of responsibility. Each member assumes that others will fill any shortfall, and the larger the group, the weaker the sense of personal responsibility.
• A sense that the contribution makes no difference. If the effect of the individual on the result looks small, motivation falls.
• Low interest in the task. Tasks that a member does not see as meaningful raise the likelihood of slackening.
• A sense of unfairness. A person who sees a colleague slacken without consequence may reduce that person’s effort too, so as not to be exploited.

What the 1993 review says

Karau and Williams published an analytic review in 1993 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (volume 65, issue 4, pages 681 to 706). It gathered the results of many studies on social loafing and tried to explain them within one theoretical framework.

Summaries of the review agree that the phenomenon appears in many studies. They also agree that it is weaker under certain conditions: when an individual’s contribution is evaluated separately, when the task is meaningful to those working on it, and when the team is one that its members value. The summaries also mention variation across cultures and groups. We keep to this outline from the summaries and report no effect sizes or figures.

How social loafing shows in an establishment

It can show in unintended forms. A member delays finishing a part and relies on the team to catch up, a member attends meetings less when others do the talking, or team reports credit everyone and blur who did what. The appearance of some of these forms does not mean that the employee is lazy by nature, because the design of the work can be the cause. Several practices that are described in other terms help in understanding teams:

• In the Tuckman model, teams pass through stages, and accountability can be unclear in the early stages before roles settle.
• A self managed team needs clarity about each member’s share, because without a manager the team relies more on the commitment of members to one another.
• A group that agrees on what no individual wants illustrates the Abilene paradox. It is a different phenomenon, but it resembles social loafing in that an individual behaves differently in a group than alone.
• Research on what drives an employee to put in effort falls under work motivation, which includes factors that can explain why effort rises in one job and falls in another.

How the effect is reduced

No single measure removes it. Proposals centre on changing the design of work and not on lecturing individuals. The measures include:

• Making contributions visible. A task is assigned to each member by name in a RACI matrix, so that responsibility for each part is clear.
• Dividing the work into separate parts. Each member can be credited with a part, and the part can be measured clearly.
• Setting clear goals. Each member’s share can be set with a measure and a date through SMART goals.
• Using colleagues’ views. The team can learn who contributes through peer appraisal, although it needs care so as not to turn into flattery or the settling of scores.
• Making the task meaningful. The member understands how the member’s part affects the result, and is given job autonomy in how it is done.
• Making the team smaller. The fewer the members, the easier it is to see each one’s contribution, though this is not possible in every job.

A hypothetical example: output alone and in a group

Suppose that employees at a hypothetical establishment review files. When each works alone, each reviews on average 12 files a day. A team of five employees is then formed, with their result recorded jointly, and the team reviews 50 files a day. The average per member in the team is 50 ÷ 5 = 10 files, which is 10 ÷ 12 = 83.3% of the member’s output alone. The shortfall is 12 minus 10 = 2 files, which is 2 ÷ 12 = 16.7%.

This shortfall does not prove social loafing. Its cause may be coordination: employees can wait for one another when handing over a file, or review the same file twice. The individual figure may also have been measured in a lighter week.

That is the distinction the 1979 study tried to separate: how much of the shortfall is coordination and how much is motivation. The calculation shows the gap that has to be explained before any cause is assigned to it. The figures are hypothetical and set to illustrate. They do not represent an establishment or a study, and the example does not mean that a shortfall of this size is customary.

Where the concept is limited

• Laboratory origins. Many early studies were carried out with individuals performing short tasks, and their results may not apply to a permanent team that works with a manager and goals.
• Not every member. Some individuals put in more effort in a group, and what appears in the average does not represent every person.
• Hard to demonstrate at work. An individual’s output alone and in a team can hardly be measured under the same conditions.
• Misattribution. Weak coordination, unclear tasks or a shortage of resources can be credited to social loafing wrongly.
• Culture and context. Results of studies carried out in one country cannot be moved to a local establishment without testing.

How the concept is misused

• Labelling a person. An employee is called a “social loafer” on the basis of one incident.
• Using it as a pretext against teamwork. The team is abolished and work is divided among individuals even when the work needs cooperation.
• Responding with heavy monitoring. The members’ movements are counted until the sense of purpose that sustains commitment is lost.
• Ignoring the design of work. Individuals are blamed when the cause of the slackening is that nobody knows the member’s share.
• Explaining every decline in a team by it. The decline can come from exhaustion, a shortage of skill or a change in priorities.

The role of the direct manager

The manager has a large part in the design of group work. The manager can clarify each member’s share of the task, follow progress through what the whole team can see, and, when work slows, ask an open question before judging: what is holding up the work? The cause may be an unclear task or a conflict of priorities and not a weakness of commitment.

Linking a group’s reward to a result that all help to produce is described in gainsharing, although tying a reward to the group result alone may increase some individuals’ reliance on others.

Is there proof that social loafing lowers team productivity in establishments?

We state no measured amount of social loafing in work teams in establishments. In the sources we reviewed, we found no published figure that we adopt for it, and we propose no figure of our own. The phenomenon is treated as a hypothesis to be tested in each establishment: does an individual’s effort fall when the result is attributed to the group, and does that change when the individual’s contribution becomes visible? The judgement rests on what appears in a particular team and not on what is transferred from laboratory experiments.

Social loafing remains a way of reminding those who design group work that unclear shares can weaken effort. It points to a place to examine when a team slows, and what is decided afterwards rests on the nature of the task and on what the team members say.

This is an explanation of the concept, not legal advice.