The present investigation examined the hypothesis that internal group pressures to maximize productivity would moderate social loafing (the decrease of individual effort as group size increases). Subjects, working in either two-or four-person groups, were told to construct as many folded paper products as they could in a fixed time period. Task attractiveness, a determinant of productivity, was manipulated. As predicted, social loafing occurred in the low task attractiveness conditions. In high task attractiveness conditions, a social enhancement effect occurred where four-person groups outperformed two-person groups.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Anderson, L. R. , and Ager, J. W. (1978). Analysis of variance in small group research. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 4, 341-345.
2.
Asch, S. (1951). Effects of group pressure upon the modification and distortion of judgements. In H. Guetzkow (Ed.), Groups, leadership and men. Pittsburgh: Carnegie Press.
3.
Back, K. W. (1951). Influence through social communication. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 46, 9-23.
4.
Cohen, J. (1969). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences. New York: Academic Press.
5.
Dashiell, J. F. (1935). Experimental studies of the influence of social situations on the behavior of individual human adults. In C. Murchison (Ed.), Handbook of social psychology. Worcester, MA: Clark University Press.
6.
Festinger, L. (1950). Informal social communication. Psychological Review, 57, 271-282.
7.
Hackman, J. R. & Morris, C. G. (1975). Group tasks, group interaction process, and group performance effectiveness: A review and proposed integration. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 8). New York: Academic Press.
8.
Harkins, S. G. , Latane, B., & Williams, K (1980). Social loafing: Allocating effort or taking it easy. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 16, 457-465.
9.
Harkins, S. G. & Petty, R. E. (1982). The effects of task difficulty and task uniqueness on social loafing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43, 1214-1229.
10.
Ingham, A. G. , Levinger, G., Graves, J., & Peckham, V. (1974). The Ringelmann effect: Studies of group size and group performance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 10, 371-384.
11.
Kerr, N. L. & Bruun, S. E. (1981). Ringelmann revisited: Alternative explanations for the social loafing effect. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 7, 224-231.
12.
Kolb, D. A.Rubin, I. M. , & McIntyre, J. M. (1979). Organizational psychology: An experiential approach. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
13.
Latané, B. (1973). A theory of social impact. St. Louis, MO: Psychonomic Society.
14.
Latané, B. , Williams K., & Harkins, S. (1979). Many hands make light the work: The causes and consequences of social loafing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 822-832.
15.
Meyers, J. L. (1979). Fundamentals of experimental design. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
16.
Rutkowski, G. , Gruder, C. L., & Romer, D. (1983). Group cohesiveness, social norms and bystander intervention. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 545-552.
17.
Steiner, I. D. (1972). Group process and productivity. New York: Academic Press.
18.
Williams, K. , Harkins, S. & Latane, B. (1981). Identifiability as a deterrent to social loafing: Two cheering experiments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 40, 303-311.
