The effects of group beliefs and task meaningfulness on social loafing

More than 100 studies on social loafing have demonstrated that individuals often work less hard on collective tasks than they do on individual tasks. Karau and Williams (1993) conducted a meta-analyses and found a mean effect size of d = 0.44 for social loafing, which is moderate in magnitude. Fortunately, social loafing is not inevitable. Numerous variables have been found to moderate this effect, and in some instances produce motivation gains. The current study examined the effects of task meaningfulness and beliefs about groups on social loafing. The experimental design of the study was a 2 (work condition: coactive or collective) x 2 (task meaningfulness: high or low) x 2 (beliefs about groups: high or low) between-subjects factorial design. Beliefs about groups (BAG) was measured using Karau and Elsaid's (2005) BAG scale which has high internal consistency (alpha = 0.88). Performance was measured by the number of symbols correctly decoded and the number and proportion of decoding errors. The study hypotheses were developed based on the logic of the Collective Effort Model (CEM) developed by Karau and Williams (1993). Data were analyzed using analyses of variance, as well as priori orthogonal contrasts to make planned comparisons (Kirk, 1982). All hypotheses were strongly supported. Specifically, the strong tendency for participants to engage in social loafing was reduced significantly when the task was high in meaningfulness and when participants had positive beliefs about groups. Moreover, as predicted, a motivation gain was found for high group belief participants in the high task meaningfulness condition. These findings suggest that social loafing is not an inevitable consequence of group work, and that motivation gains can even emerge under the right conditions. The results of this study lend further support for the efficacy of the CEM. The study also has practical implications, and suggests that it is important for managers to consider both team members' beliefs about groups and the meaningfulness of the group's work in order to design effective work teams.