The Role of Evaluation in Eliminating Social Loafing

Stephen G. Harkins · Jeffrey M. Jackson

247 citations0/0 files storedPersonality and Social Psychology Bulletin

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Team Dynamics and Performance Social and Intergroup Psychology Social Power and Status Dynamics

Abstract

Comparability of performances within four-person groups was manipulated in a brainstorming task. Crossed with this manipulation of evaluation potential, participants' outputs either were individually identifiable or were pooled. Replicating previous social-loafing research (Latane, Williams, & Harkins, 1979), when outputs were identifiable, participants generated more uses than when their outputs were pooled. However, this difference emerged only when participants believed that their individual outputs could be evaluated through comparison with their co-workers' performances. When participants believed that their individual outputs were not comparable and thus could not be evaluated, there was no difference in the number of uses generated by participants whose outputs were identifiable and those whose outputs were pooled. These data suggest that to eliminate social loafing participants must feel not only that their outputs are individually identifiable as suggested by Williams, Harkins, and Latane (1981), but also that these outputs can be evaluated through comparison with the outputs of their co-workers.

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References

1979Many hands make light the work: The causes and consequences of social loafing.1972Group process and productivity 1981Psychology of Group Influence 1973Group Process and Productivity 1934Experimental Social Psychology 1981Identifiability as a deterrant to social loafing: Two cheering experiments.1972Experimental Social Psychology 1974The Ringelmann effect: Studies of group size and group performance

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1995Invoking Social Comparison to Improve Electronic Brainstorming: Beyond Anonymity 1995A Model of Social Loafing in Real Work Groups 1989Social loafing and group evaluation.2002Accountability as a deterrent to self-enhancement: The search for mechanisms.1999Effects and timing of developmental peer appraisals in self-managing work groups.2010Motivating interdependent teams: Individual rewards, shared rewards, or something in between?

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