The official term labeled “Social Loafing” is described as when a particular person working as part of a team refrains from doing their best work, and instead allows others to pick up the slack. Max Ringlemann, a French agricultural engineer, was the first to investigate the social phenomenon of social loafing. He gathered his information by observing how hard people pulled when playing tug-of-war. Members of larger teams used only half as much strength compared to one member going up against another. His initial study paved the way for much more extensive research of social loafing. Bibb Latane, who measured how hard people screamed in large and small groups, made the term official in 1979. You don’t need to look far to find an example of social loafing: almost any workplace has it going on to some degree on a regular basis. Social loafing doesn’t even have to be limited to an individual. When several teams are assigned to a job for a much larger project, an entire team may give itself over laziness.
When is social loafing most likely to take place? It’s pretty easy to figure out if you take the time to think about it. From an individual perspective, social loafing most often occurs when figuring out the specific contributions of each person is difficult to identify. A team approach often means that there is no quantifiable method of determining which members did what and to what degree and how well. It is under these circumstances that social loafing is most likely to occur. The less that an individual’s contribution is likely to be noticed and graded, the more likely social loafing will happen. On the other hand, social loafing occurs with much less regularity when the assigned task captures the imagination and interest of the participants. This should not be surprising since there is an ingrained movement to excel when taking part in a task that is interesting
Given that, what kinds of steps can one take to guard against social loafing? It has been...