Group work is often dreaded, and there are some very real reasons for this. Many people don’t like interacting with groups in general while others are just bad at working. Either way working in a group can be troublesome, but can be made easier with some simple background knowledge.
To work well with people you are going to need some psychological know-how. Understanding the concepts of social-loafing and how being in a group can cause psychological distraction will be exceptionally valuable when learning to work with other people.
What is Social-Loafing?
Social loafing (or as I like to write it, social-loafing) is the phenomenon that causes people to put forth less effort in a group then in private. It usually happens because there is a loss of individual identity when people are put into groups.
The situation is a little bit more nuanced though. Image that you are watching a tug-of-war. First, there is only one person on each team. Everything is riding on how well the individual person performs, and they can feel it. Everyone is watching them, and only them. If they mess up there is no one to blame or push the embarrassment off onto except themselves. There exists no one else to blame.
Now, they might call out that the sun is in their eyes and that caused them to trip, or that the grass was wet and that caused them slide. We call those people poor losers. Why? Partially because they’re not taking full accountability for the failure of the team.
Imagine now that each team has ten people on it. Do you still think that every individual person is giving it their full strength? If you imaged two families or tight friend groups working together then there is a good chance that you’d say yes. If you imagined a group of coworkers or maybe your estranged aunts and uncles working together then you’d probably say no.
So what’s the difference? Why is one group working in sync and the other is loafing around? Its because of the loss of identity that comes with social loafing.
Think about it. If you were pulling on that rope with your brothers and sisters, wouldn’t you work harder then if you were pulling on it with you coworkers? Without knowing you personally, I’d hazard a guess that you’d say yes. I’d also hazard a guess that one of the main reasons for this is that you feel a sense of obligation to your family because they know what you are capable of.
On the flip side, when you’re with you coworkers do you actually feel like they know you? There might be one or two that you feel friendly with, but to claim that they actually know you in a way that makes you feel obligated to perform at your best would be much less likely. In other words, you don’t have a solid, or well formed, identity among them. So you can get away with loafing because they don’t really know what to expect from you.
This is what social loafing is: Putting in less effort because you can.
There are other reasons of course. One of the most commonly cited reasons is that you may expect your teammates to put in enough effort to make up for your lack. After all, if everyone just pulled a little bit harder, wouldn’t that make it so your half-hearted effort would go unnoticed?
As is often stated by ranking business executives, “If you could get everyone on your team pulling in the same direction, nothing could stop them.”
Why do People get Distracted in Groups?
When working in groups, it is easy to become distracted. This is very common due to a high level of psychological activation. (Or as it is otherwise referred to, high psychological arousal.)
There are a lot of things to think about when you’re placed into a group, even if its one that you’ve been in for a while. One of the most demanding is evaluation apprehension. Evaluation apprehension is the nervousness you get when you’re thinking “what will other people think about me?” Evaluation apprehension is perfectly normal. It can be rather annoying to deal with though. It often fills your head with self-critiquing thoughts and an over-analysis of what you are doing. This distracts you from having proper motor function. Several interesting studies have shown that this is the case even when you are doing something that comes naturally for you.
Another very common issue (and one that I deal with personally) is that of overcrowding. This issue sounds like its name. An onomatopoeia if you will. Basically, if too many people are around you, (and they’re all acting like regular people do) it will naturally lead to sensory over-stimulation. It isn’t that each individual person is being too loud, or that you are being too sensitive. It is simply that everyday things get loud when they compound each other. No one likes loud spaces, and while it is true that some people are more prone to over-stimulation than others, everyone does experience this.
Why overcrowding affects performance is very fascinating though. The data suggests that there are three usual outcomes to being overstimulated: 1) Shutting down, 2) Having a strong anxiety response, 3) Having a strong anger response.
- Shutting down is pretty straight forward. This is the one that I most often do. This could look like someone actively finding a quiet spot, not talking, or generally not interacting with their environment. As the name suggestions, they shut down psychologically in order to better handle the sensory over-stimulation.
- Having a strong anxiety response could look like many things. Some people cope with anxiety better than others do, and so its rather hard to nail down exactly what the interplay between these two constructs is. It can be said though that people having this response will likely seek out a place where they can calm down.
- Getting angry is a very interesting reaction to being overstimulated. In case you don’t know, most scientists usually accept that anger is experienced when there is obstacle blocking a goal. In other words, anger is designed to destroy what is keeping us from reaching our goals. Why people get angry in crowds is really interesting because it may indicate a more base human urge to avoid crowded areas. (This is not verified however and should only be treated as speculation.)
How can I Work Better in Groups?
Why did we spend so much time talking about loafing and overcrowding? A simple reason really. If you understand why you and those in your group are behaving a certain way, then it becomes easier to overcome that behavior.
Applying the concept and causes of social loafing to group work and group performance could mean that you just need to get to know your group members better (or make them get to know each other better.) Often that could be as simple as a get-to-know-you game or asking them what they like to do on the weekends. Sometimes it can be harder though. If someone in your group is very shy they probably won’t respond very well to your prodding. Instead you might consider asking for their opinion about an aspect of the project.
If someone is loafing in a group because they think you’ll make up the slack, then you’ll likely need to show them that you actually won’t make up the slack. This can be hard to do, be strong though. If they truly care about the project then they’ll pick up their pace.
If someone in a group doesn’t care about the task, this is a different problem than social loafing. They could be experiencing amotivation due to a lack of their 3 needs being met. That is discussed in our courses and elsewhere on the website.
To apply the idea of overcrowding, you simply need to be paying extra close attention to how someone is behaving in a group. Are they shutting down, experiencing anxiety, getting angry, or something else. To fix this you may need to adjust the group size or give them a chance to take some alone time. It would also help if you try to remedy the issue by talking them out of their emotional state.
Summary
In this article we talked about some very basic aspects of group work and why people may not be performing in groups. We defined social loafing and overcrowding as well as gave some tips on how you might address those issues.
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Thank you for reading,
Spencer Garrett