The other day in class we discussed the affects of individual behavior in the presence of others. One of the idea’s mentioned was social loafing. Social Loafing can be defined as the tendency of an individual in a group to exert less effort toward attaining a common goal than when tested individually. Basically, people do not try as hard or at all when involved with or surrounded by others.
This idea reminded me exactly why I despise group projects. I was never a huge fan of group projects in high school, but when I got to college I realized that working in groups was even worse. I was assigned random group members for a Freshman seminar class first semester, and it was easily the worst experience I have ever had. No one in the group communicated with each other, and no one would answer e-mails or group messages. I think the other members in the group just expected that someone else would take responsibility and do the entire project on their own simply so their individual grade would not suffer. Two days before the project was due, another girl and I concluded that we would have to do the project entirely by ourselves. Completing this project caused unnecessary stress and aggravation. The project was meant to be divided up for 5 people, and only 2 people ended up helping with the project. Granted, it is natural to slack off sometimes, but it is completely unfair to leave a massive project up to two people. Everyone’s grade will suffer anyways when two people are left to complete work meant for five. Although we had to fill out team evaluation forms for each group member, everyone still ended up receiving the same grade regardless of the fact most people contributed absolutely nothing.
I guess it is easy to slack off in groups, especially when working with friends, but it is definitely an aspect of behavior that I do not like. I don’t know if there is a solution to social loafing, especially when it comes to group projects in college. If no one does anything, then everyone fails. It’s a lose-lose situation no matter how you look at it.