Social Loafing

The term “social loafing” really stuck out to me when we learned about it in class. Social loafing is whenever an individual in a group to exerts less effort toward attaining a common goal than when tested individually. I experienced social loafing last semester whenever I was assigned a group project for a class with 3 other people. The project was not divided up among the group members, but rather something that we would all have to work together on. The project was to be done outside of class, so I gathered each group member’s contact information so that we could decide on a time to meet up and work on the project. Unfortunately, when it came time to do the project and I contacted all of my group members, only one member responded to me and was willing to meet up and work on the project. The one group member and I met up and ended up finishing the project without the help of the other two group members. When confronted about not helping with the project, the other group members insisted that they had a lot going on and did not have time. However, I also had exams that week and did not want to spend time on the project, but the one group member and I were stuck doing the project by ourselves because the other members knew we would pick up their slack. The two group members chose not to do the project because of social loafing. They knew that the project would get done without their help, so they put forth no contribution. It ended up not working out in their favor whenever the instructor gave us peer evaluations and we were able to say who did and did not contribute to the project. Social loafing is definitely a common thing.

2 thoughts on “Social Loafing

  1. Grace Hailyn Lee

    Social loafing is one of the reasons I dislike group projects. In my high school film class every year we had to get a group together make a 5-6 minute short film. My junior year I was in a group of four people where me and my friend basically had to beg the other two guys to meet up to record and edit our film. In the beginning they were very helpful and wrote the script with us, but when we had to start recording they started to get lazy. We needed the extra hands, which they were supposed to be but they were very difficult to meet up with. They always had something to do or had something come up and never showed up.
    When we eventually got enough footage to start editing the film they barely even helped us me and my friend had to do everything ourselves. To top it off they LOST the footage that we needed for a very important scene. Having them in the group was counterproductive! We were unable to even finish the film because they were so reluctant to help. Thankfully, my teacher was very understanding and when me and my friend explained out situation he said things like this happen all the time. We did not all get the same grade for the film, which I believe is to be fair because they did not put as much effort into the film as my friend and I did.

  2. Joseph James Buongiorno

    I have just experienced social loafing in a class this semester for the first time. It was a group based class in which we were with the same group for the entire semester. When we were together we could not get anything done, everyone began to depend on other group members and our tasks were never accomplished. Being the group leader I suggested that we meet in smaller groups of 2, instead of all ten of us. When we were tested individually, with the group leader present, we were very effective. Instead of allowing members to “socially loaf” putting them in smaller groups with the group leader made them accountable and supervised. I think an effective group leader is the remedy to social loafing.

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