Social Loafing Essay

In Psychology Today, research has shown that the more roles people fill, the more sources of self-esteem they have. Meaningful work has long been one of the most important ways to feel good about oneself. With either no work environment at all or an unhealthy one, a person’s self-esteem can go down tremendously. The hard-working community must face the terrifying fact that their identity is so highly linked to their job. Failure to maintain a job or fulfill a days’ worth of work connects with their personal emotions which then can result in low self-esteem, self-loathing, or depression.

My hypothesis is that social influence theory and groupthink play a significant factor in the actions seen at the professional, college and high school levels which can result in irrational and dysfunctional behavior. We see athletes on television and at local sporting events influenced by what they see and hear in social media and within their community. Thus, these individuals are influenced by social influence theory and groupthink with or without their cognitive knowledge.

HANQING CHEN (2012, March). Who's Really to Blame for Apple's Chinese Labor Problems?. Retrived From: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/whos-really-to-blame-for-apples-chinese-labor-problems/253892/

Social loafing – someone decides to take a free ride and let the group do the work

Egotism can overtake the minds of virtually anyone who attempts to gain status and wealth. The gift of

An individual who is cognizant are capable of determining one’s psychological states exuded during any particular circumstance. Adults who augment such necessary cordial competencies will discern, elucidate, and justify such psychological states occurring internally and in others. Comprehension is pivotal for the regulation of one’s psychological states. The primary objective of writing this essay is to written with the prime intent on how the decisions of other counterfactual thinking influences the experience of envy. Envy is self-pernicious due to the inability to cherish one’s exceptional bestowed treasures. An example of envy includes the following: you have been working for a company as a business administrator for fifteen years with no capability to advance in an eminent status in the job setting while a recent hire who only has been working for the company for only one year manages to become the corporate executive officer. It is a frustrating experience that can lead to both a desire that the other loses the advantage and a motivation to improve oneself (Parrott & Smith, 1993; Smith & Kim, 2007; Van de Ven, Zeelenberg, & Pieters, 2009). Mental images occurring in the cognitive process for any alterations for the previous circumstances influence ones psychological

Once again jealousy can be behind it because when someone is jealous they can feel that they aren’t as good as someone else. Never does anyone think of the upper class being jealous of someone on the lower side of social class and they are probably right, they have less to worry about. Confidence issues can lead to many forms of relief that don’t need to go into details. “Chances are they suffer from low self-esteem issues, and have relied on the effects of alcohol to help them come out of theirs shells, be more gregarious and approachable.” (Bennett 1).

The cultural backgrounds of China and India were also similar in the way that these two cultures were richer than the culture of Africa and the Americas which allowed them to grow rapidly. The Americas and Africa were just beginning to develop whereas China and India has established themselves and these countries had a deep history.

An example of this from my life is with my academic stance in the class of 2020. When it comes to grades and test scores, it is easy for me to be competitive with others and become envious of their scores. Since

This atmosphere of someone is always watch and evaluating you and your performance level leads to social facilitation. Everyone wants to do their absolute best when they know that the boss is watching. In this case everyone is watch always so it magnifies the results obtained from a single individual. Teamwork was seemingly not embraced but rather the concept of self-edification through wealth as the ultimate goal.

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.

“In matches between the two groups of football teams, the teams from the same state as the umpires received more favorable decisions than the other teams did by a margin of 11% for the 171 games studied.” In situations where the umpires had to allocate rewards to members of a group they identified with competing against a group they did not identify with they clearly favored their ingroup. This study helped proved the theory that intergroup competition is a prevalent reason why ingroup favoritism is often exhibited in society. This idea is completely embedded into the entire sporting culture of our society today. We group ourselves together with the “home team” or the ingroup. We prefer for that group, as well as ourselves by association, to be successful. The second explanation that is usually offered is the idea that people will have a better opinion of people in their ingroup in order to boost their own self-esteem by association. Robert Cialdini conducted a very interesting study on a concept called Basking in Reflected Glory (BIRG) at several different universities. In order to study how self-esteem was a determinant of ingroup bias, Cialdini and his team researched the behavior of students after victories and losses of the school’s football teams. Their results “Demonstrated the BIRG phenomenon by showing a greater tendency for university students to wear

Thirdly, our communication skills were better enhanced and we were able to build up on our synergy levels. In such an environment where communication is open and free-flowing, people were able to bring in new ideas, concepts and attitudes which benefitted the entire group. The problem with ineffective communication, especially where diverse groups are involved is that issues such as stereotyping are bound to crop up. This, in turn, caused team members to become increasingly self-conscious and often kept to themselves for fear of being judged. Much to it, the aspect of self-disclosure becomes almost elusive because no one is willing to step out of their comfort zone and steer a relevant discussion to the project at hand. In a scenario whereby team members are free to talk and express their ideas and feelings without being judged, the fear of revealing one’s true self is diminished tremendously (Peri et al., 2000). This is because such an environment fosters trust, values and ethics. Contrary to this, an environment that is characterized by prejudices and presumptions about others disintegrates this trust and often results to reduced productivity among the members. Cooperation and trust are two aspects that often determine the overall performance of a group. Where there is trust, team players become

The DISC model of human behavior is a simple key to understand how people behave and how they are motivated. Twenty-four hundred years ago, scientists and philosophers, most notably Hippocrates, began to recognize and categorize differences in behavior that seemed to follow a pattern. Since then, many psychologists and scientists have explored behavioral patterns. The initial DISC model comes from Dr. William Marston, a physiological psychologist, in a book entitled Emotions of Normal People, published in 1928. He did not create an instrument from his theory, but others did. DISC is the leading personal assessment tool used by over 1 million people every year to improve work productivity, teamwork and communication. I believe the public sector must adopt this DISC test before recruitments in order to avoid social loafing (Max Ringelmann',1913), the phenomenon of people exerting less effort to achieve a goal when they work in a group than when they work alone.

The studies failed to prove any positive correlations between workplace conditions and productivity. The results of the studies demonstrated that innate forces of human behavior may have a greater influence on organizations than do mechanistic incentive systems. The legacy of the Hawthorne studies and other organizational research efforts of that period began to emphasize the importance of individual and group interaction, humanistic management skills, and social relationships in the workplace.