Who Are the Social Loafers?

The ultimate foes of productive teamwork

If you’ve ever been to university and had a group assessment task, you’ve probably encountered the social loafer.​

You know who I mean: That person who is technically in the group, but if they weren’t it would make precisely zero practical difference to everyone else.​

The loafer will rock up to the occasional group meeting, smile and nod when people are discussing the task, and agree with everything being said. But when crunch time arrives, and the rest of you are frantically trying to put the last pieces of your assessment together, the social loafer is nowhere to be seen.

“Sorry just have a thing, I’ll get in as soon as I can.”

Maybe they go dark on the group chat when their portion of the work comes up.

“Barry, how are you going with the discussion part of the report?”

“…Barry?”​

Alas, the social loafer in the uni group task can be the cause of significant frustration; the person who rides on the coattails of the others and takes no accountability for contributing themselves.​

Social loafing is a phenomenon where, as the size of a team grows, an individual feels less personal accountability for the team’s work and outcomes. And even though the university example will resonate with many people, it’s not limited to academia.


Social Loafing

In 1913, Max Ringelmann noticed that if you ask a single person to pull on a rope, they’ll exert more effort than if you had them pull on the rope with a group. It wasn’t until 1974 that this idea was picked up again and with further research was coined “social loafing”.

It’s been seen in cheering: If you’re clapping in a group you put in less effort than if it’s you alone. This doesn’t seem particularly harmful. I mean, if 10,000 people are doing the wave in a stadium, it will still be a wave if I don’t join in…right?

Social loafing has also been recognised in cognitive tasks; hence, the uni piece, but also reflecting its tendency to pop up in workplace teams.

In a social setting, the social loafer may be the friend in the friendship group who never puts in much effort to initiating or organising social outings. They may hardly reply to messages and only sometimes show up, relying on other group members to pick up the slack and ensure the friendships don’t drift.

In a workplace, social loafing might occur with little things; someone notices there’s a small error in a report, but because five other people are also responsible for the said report, they assume someone else will intervene.

For a work team, social loafing can lead to some members pulling all the weight (known as the ‘suckers’) of the others, who become known as the less-competent, unreliable group members. Over time, this dynamic can build tension, frustration and resentment towards the loafers. If not addressed, it can result in the people who do contribute a lot asking themselves whether they want to continue working with such a team.

On a bigger scale, large work projects can result in such diluted responsibility between departments and team members that no one puts much effort into anything at all; it can all be palmed off as someone else’s potential responsibility. When projects don’t have clearly defined scopes and accountability, you can end up with so much social loafing that nothing productive really happens at all.

Some research suggests that social loafing may even influence voting behaviour. Some argue that electoral polls prompt social loafing from potential voters when, for example, they suggest with confidence that their party is destined to win already. It would have been easy enough, in 2016, based on the polls and media at the time, to assume that staying home instead of going out to vote would make little difference to the overall outcome of the presidential election.​

Even if we ignore the other variables and inaccuracy of electoral polls in the American system in recent years, voting is an anonymous action with minimal personal accountability. So, it generally fits the landscape for social loafing to occur. It’s fascinating that, comparatively, the 2020 US election has seen historic numbers of voter turnout from all sides of the political spectrum.

Of course, this may be more applicable in places like America where voting is not compulsory, but in places like Australia, perhaps it leads to more ‘donkey votes’ when the outcome seems set in stone.


​Reducing Social Loafing

With social loafing comes reduced engagement and motivation. And, when it comes to teams, it’s the kind of situation where a single bad apple can ruin the bunch. It’s not unusual to see formerly engaged members of a group stop caring because they don’t want to be ‘suckered’ into picking up all the slack.

Overall productivity, cohesion and outcomes can experience rapid decline — and this goes for all kinds of situations, from professional to personal to community.

There are many suggested ways to minimise social loafing. A lot of it comes down to communication, accountability and buy-in.

​When people recognise that their contribution will make a difference, be valued, and be seen as unique, it’s easier to have increased motivation towards the task.​

With a strong culture, leadership and values, people might become more dedicated to the group and fulfilling the needs of the job. With clear boundaries, individual expectations set, and consistent feedback, it’s harder for responsibilities to diffuse and become vague. And, where individual performance can be measured and identified, you lose the temptation to drift along with the crowd and hope no one points it out.

Of course, when you don’t have much control or leadership over a group yourself, it’s difficult to execute some of these measures. But if we do our best to keep communicating, define responsibilities and give direct feedback, maybe we’ll end up with a more motivated, engaged team.​

I’d love to hear about your own experiences with social loafing, what you did and how the situation went for you. Let me know in the comments.


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