Social loafing
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This paper reviews the psychological concept of social loafing, which describes the tendency of individuals to contribute less effort in group settings, negatively impacting teamwork in dental health care services. It argues that social loafing is a significant barrier to effective collaboration among dental professionals in Nigeria and emphasizes the need for strategies to mitigate its effects. The paper recommends fostering a sense of individual responsibility and enhancing group cohesiveness to combat social loafing in dental technology.
Social loafing
- 1. Social loafing as a subject of concern in achieving good and effective teamwork; a review BY EYAREFEo.STEPHEN(RDT,FIPMD) Department of dental Technology, School of Health Technology Federal university of technology, owerri - imo state August 2016
- 2. ABSTRACT This paper examined a psychological concept called social loafing as a great debility in achieving good and effective teamwork. Social loafing describes the tendency of individuals to put forth less effort when they are part of a group. Because all members of the group are pooling their effort to achieve a common goal, each member of the group contributes less than they would if they were individually responsible. The paper unveils this concept as one of the major factors militating against effective teamwork practices in rendering oral health care services. This calls for analysis because our levels of individual effort consistently drop when we work in group settings and we just don't work as hard individually in teams. Most practitioners in oral health care delivery fall within this framework because they are not contributing their roles significantly as members of the dental health care team. This makes Dental Technology and other professions in dental health care to have not just a slow growth rate but experience difficulties in standing the test of time when compared with other professional organizations in Nigeria. The paper used the primary and secondary sources of data to explore, review and explain the application of this concept as it affects dentistry. The paper further argues that for Dental Technology and other professionals in dentistry to develop into a profession of great repute in Nigeria there is need for stakeholders to be mindful of the principle of social loafing, ensure effective collaborative mechanism that propels individuals within the team and to fully define and see their roles as very important in building a formidable dental health team. Keywords: social loafing, social loafing theory, team, teamwork, team building.
- 3. Definition of Terms • A team is a group of people with different skills and different tasks, who work together on a common project, service, or goal, with a meshing of functions and mutual support. It is a number of people organized to function cooperatively as a group (microsft Encarta, 2009) • Team building is seen as activities designed to encourage people to work cooperatively (Microsoft Encarta, 2009). • Teamwork is defined by encyclopedia Britannica (2009) as work done by several associates with each doing a part but all subordinating personal prominence to the efficiency of the whole. It is a work produced by a group or team (Microsoft Encarta, 2009).
- 4. INTRODUCTION • Teams are becoming a key tool for organizing work in today’s corporate world. Teams have the potential to immediately amass, organize, relocate, and disperse. But, teams are an effective tool of employee motivation. It is essential to consider the fact that teams develop and get mature over a period of time. Team development creates a captivating atmosphere by encouraging co-operation, teamwork, interdependence and by building trust among team members. • Since teamwork has become more and more important in organizations, it has been a necessity for organizations to cope with social loafing. “Social loafing refers to the reduced efforts of individuals who act as part of a group rather than alone” (Latene et al., 1979). He opined that Individuals within a group put less than 100% effort because of a lack of motivation. Social loafing has been defined as a social disease in every level of social strata. • The literature on social loafing identifies several antecedents as contributing to the development of social loafing among group members. These antecedents include task visibility, task interdependence, cohesiveness, distributive justice, procedural justice, group size, and dominance. In addition to these antecedents, research has identified several individual social factors that are commonly associated with, contribute to, and at times are used interchangeably with the term social loafing. These factors include shirking, lurking, dominance, aggression, and free riding. • If you know that you – and only you - are being held responsible, you will work harder
- 5. AIM To decipher the concept of social loafing and its effect in teamwork especially as it affects oral health care delivery. To establish the existence of social loafing in both physical and cognitive group projects. To explain theories associated with subject matter. To educate stakeholders (team players) to be mindful of the principle of social loafing. To determine effective collaborative mechanism that propels individuals within the team.
- 6. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK (The Standpoint) Social loafing portrays negativity in teamwork. It is a disease infecting organizations such as Dental Technology. It brings out individuality (i.e. traits not conforming to positive team spirit). It kills team spirit and deters development. It results from lack of motivation. It is a psychological concept that has theoretical backup (i.e. various researches have been conducted on it with proof of pertinent results applied to different fields of endeavours).
- 7. Pertinent Question • What exactly causes social loafing? • Is it because group dynamics allow an individual the ability to “hide in the crowd”? • Does social loafing only exist in physical activities? • Or does it also happen when groups are performing cognitive tasks? • Does social loafing exist in Dental Technology?
- 8. The Reality You are a social loafer if: • You occupy a vantage position in Dental Technology without performing (e.g. Executive in Professional Association). • You backbite your colleague to gain favour. This hampers teamwork. • You do not abide by the ethics of the profession. • You hide under other colleagues without contributing your quota in a team. • You hide your talent from others (i.e. refusing to mentor your junior colleagues in the same profession). • You do anything that can negate professional development.
- 9. THEORETICAL FOUNDATION Social Impact Theory. Latane, Williams, and Harkins (1979) explained social loafing through the Social Impact Theory. The social impact theory asserts that the magnitude of social influence is a function of number, immediacy, and strength of sources of social influence as they relate to targets. Magnitude of social influence decreases from individual to collective conditions in the social loafing research. Thus, participants in collective conditions feel less pressured to work hard, and their outputs are lower than of those working individually. The theory suggests that when individuals work collectively, social influence is diffused across group members, and each additional group member has less influence as group size increases. The theory therefore states that while the impact of others on the individual increases as the number of people increases, the rate of increase in impact grows less as each new individual is added.
- 10. IMPLICATIONS People working in groups can be lazy – think of lessons where you work in groups and how much effort you put in. Do you get fed up with others being lazy? (How do you think they feel about you?). It’s the same in businesses, professional organizations, with supermarket workers, the military and even with teachers. If you know that you – and only you - are being held responsible, you will work harder. A good boss will always get the best out of his/her workers, making sure that they all “pull their weight” so that everyone is working well. It should be the same in group work in classes (e.g. drama, biology practicals) Getting people to believe in “the team” helps a lot.
- 11. Examples • Ringlemann Effect: Rope pulling study…as the number of group members increased, performance of individuals decreased. Some persons shows absolute less concern in fostering the goals of the team as seen below.
- 12. FACTORS AFFECTING SOCIAL LOAFING The size of group you are in The size of task you are doing The culture to which you belong If anyone is watching how much you personally do
- 13. The Way forward • Attitudinal change • Divide up a complex task into manageable bits and spread it out. • Generate sense of urgency. • Make weaker member feels responsible. • Social loafing can be reduced or eliminated when individuals have a dispositional tendency to view the specific task they are performing as meaningful. • Make sure groups are cohesive. Create fun team cooperation projects to increase team cohesion through team building activity. Group cohesiveness is important; when cohesiveness in a group increases, participation increases. • By adding peer evaluations during group projects you can help reduce social loafing as well. Peer evaluations can send a signal to group members that there will be consequences for nonparticipation. Members may be allowed to fire loafers, forcing them to have to work together in a new group. This decreases social loafing in the original group and in turn increases accountability. • Create some form of performance measurement for each individual to serve as motivation for them to do well. • Create competition mechanism between teams. Group performance researchers have repeatedly observed that individuals exert more effort when their efforts are considered individually (Harkins& Jackson, 1985; Aggarwal and O’Brien, 2008). • Be sure to emphasize valuable individual contributions. Monitor individual efforts. It has been found that if an individual perceives that they are making a unique contribution to the group’s effort, or if they feel that their lessened effort will be noticed by group members, they are more likely to exert themselves at a high level (Nunamaker, Reinig, & Brigg, 2009). • Keep in mind that group size plays an important role. Social loafing can also be minimized by limiting the group size, which makes it harder for social loafers to hide behind other group members. It is easier to monitor individual input in smaller groups as opposed to large groups (Nunamaker, Reinig, & Brigg, 2009. • Conduct individual meetings to discuss loafing.
- 14. CONCLUSION Social loafing has negative consequences for both the group and the individuals in the group. The group dynamic is affected when certain individuals are seen as weak contributors to the group purpose. It tends to split the group and fosters a lack of cohesion. Please, if you have knowledge, let others light their candles by it. Selfishness is the greatest curse of the human race, Gladstone (1987). Furthermore, the followings are postulates that all stakeholders and specialist dental technologists need to ponder about. • “The same people who can deny others everything are famous for refusing themselves nothing”. - Hunt • “Selfishness is the great unknown sin. No selfish person ever thought himself to be selfish”. - Southern Churchman • “Everybody thinks of changing humanity and nobody thinks of changing himself. Tolstoy
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