Social loafing The art of thinking clearly

An excerpt from the art of think clearly by Rolf dobellli

In 1913 Maxmillian Ringelmann, a french engineer studied the performance of horses.He concluded that the power of two animals pulling a coach did not equal twice the power of a single horse.Surprised by this result he extended the research to humans.He has several men pull a rope and measured the force applied by each individual.On average if two people were pulling together each invested just 93% of their individual strength when three pulled together it was 85% and with eight just 49%.

Science calls this the social loafing effect.It occurs when individual performance is not directly visible, it blends in to the group effort.It occurs among rowers but not in relay races because here individual contributions are evident.Social loafing is rational behavior why invest all of your energy when half will do especially when this little shortcut goes unnoticed.

When people work together individual performances decrease.This isn't surprising.What is noteworthy however is that our input doesnt grind to a complete halt.So what stops us from putting our feet up completely and letting the others do all the `hard work ,the consequences.

Social loafing has interesting' implications.In g'roups we tend to h'old back not only in terms of participation but also in terms of accountability.Nobody wants to take the rap for th'e misdeeds or poor decisions of the whole group.We hide behind team decisions.Th'e technical term for this is diffusion of responsibility.

In conclusion: people behave differently in groups than when alone.The disadvantages of groups can be mitig'ated by making 'individual performances as visible as possible.Long' live meritocracy!! Long' live th'e performance society!!