Ringlemann Effect : Significance And Effects Of Social Loafing

Team work means that a shared sense of purpose is felt and a common purpose is identified. This bonds individuals into a team and creates the ideal scenario for success and achievement.

Learning how to work effectively in a group situation is key to success in many professions as well as in social situations. Groups vary from each other based on the individuals that make up each group, all of us belong to various groups at one time or another. The roles that we fulfill vary from group to

Initially, I had a negative view on group working because of the challenges that I had. When I was in high school, my five other friends and I used to work together in a music competition. Although we were supposed to get together to practice

2. The effect of social facilitation can be positive when the task is but negative when the task is ___________

“Social skills are particularly important in team settings because working in teams increases the interdependence among workers, typically producing greater conflict, workload sharing, and coordination demands than work that is performed independently...”

* Task effectiveness – the extent to which the team is successful in achieving it’s task-related objectives.

| Teamwork is often associated with empowerment, ownership and added responsibility. We assume that individuals would prefer to be involved in decision making, rather than simply being told what to do. While this may be true in most cases, it is not true in all cases. This may

In the article “Coping with Hitchikers and Couch Potatoes on Teams,” the author explains effective techniques to use when dealing with “hitchhikers” and “cough potatoes” in group assignments. The author gives characteristics a student should be on the lookout for to determine if another group member is a hitchhiker or couch potato. A hitchhiker is someone who will typically “hand over partially worked problems and confess to spending the weekend watching TV” (1). A hitchhiker in the group should be dealt with immediately. The author presents the idea of “mirroring” (1) the hitchhiker to make the hitchhiker pay the price for his actions. Similar to the hitchhiker, a couch potato will show related traits. A couch potato is someone who “doesn’t

Since much of our time is spend in groups, it is helpful to work in groups because it will give an opportunity to improve their human functioning. Group work helps to develop individual skills in communication, relationship building and asserting oneself

There are several factors that can increase social loafing which includes: lack of identifiability, no individual evaluation, no individual or group standards of evaluation, task is easy, boring or same as others, individual contributions not necessary, no individual or group incentives, large group and unfamiliar group. On the other hand, there are also factors that can reduce social loafing such as: individual identifiability, individual or group evaluation, individual or group standards of evaluation, task is difficult, interesting or different from others, individual contributions essential, individual or group incentives, small group and familiar group (Kendra Cherry,

As this newly formed team had to spend a portion of its time developing and maintaining the dynamics of a new team, rather than being productive and focused on the task is an example of the process loss concept of team challenges (McShane, Steen, & Tasa, 2015) This concept of process loss then escalated as joining a group late results in a longer time spent on understanding how these new members would transition well with the current ones (McShane, Steen, & Tasa, 2015). Combining with other groups also introduced the notion of social loafing which is defined as the process in which individuals are seemingly less motivated when working in teams and will exert less effort compared if they were working alone (McShane, Steen, & Tasa, 2015). This concept was especially apparent for the airplane activity as we now had a team that consisted of six members, making some members feel less valued compared to others. A decrease in value then resulted which was noticeable when some individuals would not participate and others not would not put much effort into this

The team is assembled and the task is allocated. Team members behave independently, with anxieties about inclusion and exclusion. Their time is spent planning, collecting information and bonding, with an apparent willingness to conform. This can happen whenever new circumstances occur within a group, or when new challenges or projects are set within established

Having tasks that are too difficult or are unfamiliar are likely to incite social loafing because they group member lacks the ability or courage to provide input. Robbins and Judge (2011) theorize that another cause of social loafing is an uneven equity. When two people are putting in different levels of input and receiving the same level of output the larger contributor will adjust their input to reduce cognitive dissonance. Another reason they believe is “dispersion of responsibility” group members cannot be held responsible because tasks and roles are not clearly assigned. (Robbins & Judge, 2011). In research by Worchel and others (1998) it was found that groups with friends or familiar members are far less likely to loaf when compared with groups made up of strangers (Worchel, Rothgerber, Day, Hart, & Butemeyer, 1998) Most people have been in a group made up of friends and colleges they are familiar with and seen that in these types of groups social loafing is drastically reduced.

“Group work is a form of voluntary association of members benefiting from cooperative learning that enhances the total output of the activity than when done individually”.

In the workplace, many people will come into contact with clients, colleagues, supervisors, managers, and even board members. These individuals each play a crucial role in order for an organization to succeed. Therefore, it is vital that this large network of people is able to work well together in teams and groups. However, there will be complications and problems when working in groups. A common problem that typically arises in the workplace is the perceived lack of commitment and motivation, resulting in the lack of productivity when conducting group work. From my personal experience, I used to work for a research lab that required to me to work on several experiments and projects with a group of colleagues. My group was responsible for conducting multiple experiments, analyzing the data and publishing results in scientific journals and presentations. However, the group I was placed in lacked leadership with low person orientation and low task orientation. Because there was a lack of leadership, communication was little to nonexistent within the group so groups felt as if they were just independent work alone. Also, there was lack of affective and continuance commitment within the group since my colleagues and I lost purpose of what goals we were working towards in the lab. Therefore, lack of motivation and commitment was prevalent as group members, including myself, did not complete experiments in time and did not have much of a focus of why we were in the research lab