Individual motivation loss in group settings: An exploratory study of the social-loafing phenomenon

This study examined individual motivation loss within group settings. Over 200 middle school students from an urban Los Angeles community were randomly assigned to one of two conditions and completed a brainstorming task to assess reduction of individual effort within group tasks. Self-efficacy, persistence, and collective efficacy were evaluated as primary independent variables of social loafing. Self-reported levels of invested mental effort were utilized as the dependent variable. Subjects worked collectively to generate novel uses for a spoon in conditions where they perceived their individual contributions to be either (a) easily identifiable or (b) difficult to identify. Subjects worked under a time constraint. Previous research indicated the most effective means to eliminate the social loafing phenomenon was increased individual identifiability. Correlation and partial correlation data analysis revealed divergent findings from previous empirical findings. Results indicated subjects in high identifiability, high collective efficacy conditions reduced effort compared with subjects in low identifiability conditions. Similar results were found across conditions in that identifiability did not eliminate the loafing effect. These divergent findings indicate a need for continued research to further understand the primary contributors to reduced individual effort within group settings, specifically analyzing the emergent group-level construct of collective efficacy.