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Ife PsychologIA; Volume 20 Number1, March 2012 Copyright ©2012 Ife Center for Psychological Studies/Services, Ile-Ife Nigeria.

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EFFECTS OF GROUP SIZE AND EXPECTANCY OF REWARD ON

SOCIAL LOAFING

Philip C. Mefoh, PhD & Chinonso L. Nwanosike

Department of Psychology, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Abstract

There is a large body of evidence which have shown

that monitoring personal effort on group projects reduces social loafing effects, but as the world gets

more complex with several co-operative tasks there is

a need to explore other variables that would inspire

group, rather than individual performance. This

experiment re-examined the prediction that performing in large group would lead to social loafing behaviour,

the study also tested whether the promise of reward

would attenuate social loafing effect on a simple

experimental task. Forty (40) Igbo secondary school

students of south eastern Nigeria participated in the

experiment. They were aged 13 – 16 years (mean age = 14.53). Results indicated that performance was

significantly poorer in the group condition than in the

alone condition (p. <05); and reward significantly

attenuated social loafing effect in the group condition

(p. <05). These observations were discussed in relation to the prevailing challenge in team work.

Key words: Expectancy of reward, Group size, Max

Ringlemann, Individual performance, Personal effort.

Introduction

The Igbo speaking people of south eastern Nigeria knew that individuals work less hard in groups than when working alone. The

Igbo proverb, ―ewu oha nwe n‘anwu n‘aguu‖ (meaning that a goat

owned by many individuals usually dies of hunger), predict that

sharing work with other people reduce individual performance. This

phenomenon of individuals exerting less effort when they work in a group than when they work independently is labeled social loafing.

Social loafing is a pervasive characteristic of working in groups and

occurs in several different cultures (Gabrenya, Latane & Wang,

1983).

The first evidence of social loafing was demonstrated by a

French agricultural engineer, Max Ringlemann (Kravitz & Martin,

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1986). Ringlemann asked participants to pull on a rope as hard as

they could. The participants pulled by themselves or with one, two,

or seven others. A sensitive gauge was used to measure how strongly the participants pulled the rope. Participants‘ efforts pulling on the

rope were less when they worked in a group than when they

performed the task alone. Groups of two pulled at only 95 percent of

their capacity and groups of three and eight sank to 85 percent and

49 percent respectively. That is, as more individuals pulled on the

rope, the individuals exerted themselves less. From these observations, Ringlemann observed that individuals perform below

their potential when working in a group (LaFasto & Larson, 2001).

Similarly, Latane, Williams and Harkins (1979) identified

social loafing among college students. Latane and colleagues had six

blindfolded college students sit in semi-circle. The students wore headphone that blasted sounds of people shouting into their ears.

The experimental task was to shout as loud as possible while

listening to the headphone noise. On some trials, the students

believed that the other five students were also shouting. At other

trials, they believe that they were either shouting alone or with one

other student. In reality, only a student was performing on all the trials. Consistent with the phenomenon of social loafing, when a

student thought one other person was shouting, the student shouted

82 percent as intensely as when alone, and when they believed all six

of them were shouting, they shouted 75 percent as intensely. As in

Ringlemann‘s study, output decreased with increased group membership, due to social loafing.

Since these early observations, social loafing has been

identified in numerous other studies (e.g., De Vita, 2001; Hardy &

Latane, 1988; Karau & Williams, 1993; Price & Harrison, 2006;

Weldone & Gargano, 1988). The phenomenon have also been

documented in a host of behaviours to illustrate a principle that is common in business, family, education, and in social gatherings that

harms the overall integrity and performance of a group by reducing

the level of output. The practical advice from most social loafing

research was that work groups should be designed so that each

individual‘s effort can be assessed independently of those of the group to prevent social loafing (Carron, Burke, & Prapavessis, 2004).

This advice was based on the observation that when individual

performance was monitored within the group situation the

individuals worked just as hard as they did when they worked alone

(Latane, 1981). That is, people working by themselves think they are

responsible for completing a task, when they work in groups;

Mefoh, P.; Effects of Group Size and Expetancy of Reward on Social Loafing

231

however, this feeling of responsibility diffuses to others and their

performance effort declines (Comer, 1995; Piezon & Donaldson,

2005). What happens when an individual‘s effort cannot be assessed

in a group activity? Many jobs today are very complex that only

group performance can be measured. Probably, one useful way to

attenuate social loafing effect on group projects (besides monitoring

personal effort) would be to develop a collectivistic culture. Not all

culture experience social loafing. Social loafing was more likely to occur in societies where the focus is on the individual rather than the

group (Gabrenya, et. al. 1985). In a study comparing individualistic

values to collectivistic values, Earley (1989) found that social loafing

occurred with managers with individualistic orientation, while there

was no such occurrence with managers whose orientation was focused on the group. In this study, the researchers predict that the

use of reward would enhance contributions in group product and

reduce social loafing.

The study has two simple objectives. The first was to

determine whether performance drop-off would occur in the group

condition and not in the alone condition; and the second was to examine whether reward will attenuate social loafing effect in group

condition. As many studies indicated that there was some degree of

social loafing within every group, it was predicted that performance

would be poorer in the group condition. Similarly, because it has

been demonstrated time after time in highly controlled learning experiments that reward increases the strength of a response and

increase its probability of being repeated in future (Eisenberga;

Armeli & Pretz, 1998), it was predicted that reward will reduce social

loafing effect in group conditions, and perhaps increase output.

Method

Participants

Participants for this experiment consist of forty (40) secondary school

students. All the participants were Igbo from the south eastern part

of Nigeria. The sex composition of the sample (17 males and 23 females) was representative of the student body from where the

sample was selected. The participants were selected by means of a

table of random numbers. Their ages ranges from 13 to 16 years (M =

14.53; SD = 2.93).

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Figure 1

An example of the board matrix used in the experiment

Materials

The stimulus materials were 40 board matrices (5x5 ft.) similar to the

one shown in Figure 1. Each participant received 25 pieces of neatly

cut cardboard tiles and a board matrix. The blocks/cells spaces on

the matrices were in different shapes, some were square and others rectangle. The two (2) shapes were randomly mixed on the board

matrix, such that there were 15 square and 10 rectangular shaped

cells. Latency was measured using a stop-watch.

Procedure

This experiment adopted a pre-test post-test paradigm. Before the commencement of the experiment, participants were pre-

instructed that they would be tested twice. In the pre-test (alone)

condition, the entire participants received 25 pieces of carefully

marked cardboard tiles and a board matrix each. Thereafter, the

participants were randomly assigned into 2 groups and each group was tested in different class rooms. Participants were required to fix

the tiles to the spaces marked on the board matrix according to the

shape (either a square or a rectangle). They were shown examples of

how to fix the tiles, and were informed that only tiles that were

properly fixed unto the designated spaces on the board matrix would

be counted as correct. They were told to fix as many tiles as they can. Test time was 15s. After the trial, the tiles that were correctly fixed to

their specified positions were collected and counted. The participants

score was recorded and the tiles were returned back to the

participant for the next phase of the experiment.

The post-test (group) condition was the major interest of this experiment. In this phase, one of the 2 groups earlier created was

Mefoh, P.; Effects of Group Size and Expetancy of Reward on Social Loafing

233

referred to as the reward group and the other, the no-reward group.

The variable, reward, was manipulated by simple instruction.

Participants in the reward condition were given the following instruction:

―You will have to repeat the task again. This time, your individual scores would be added together with those of other members of your group to know which group

(referring to them and other participants in the next classroom), will do better than the other. If your group

does well in this task, each one of you would get an ink pen and an exercise book”.

Participants assigned to the no-reward condition were instructed

similarly, except that the statement promising reward was omitted.

The instruction given to the no-reward group stopped at: “… This time, your individual scores would be added together with those of other members of your group to know which group will do better that than the other”.

The instruction given to the two reward groups (reward vs.

no-reward) was designed to create an illusion of judgment. That is,

participants were led to believe that each individual‘s score on the task and those of other participants in the group would be added

together to obtain the group‘s total. During the post-test, the

researchers ensured that nothing untoward happened during the

experiment, and that all the participants performed the task strictly

to the rules. The groups‘ trials lasted for 15s. At the expiration of the test interval, the researchers gathered all the properly fixed tiles from

the board matrices and sorted them according to the participant who

fixed them. All the tiles used in this experiment were carefully

marked with identification numbers, making it easy for the

researchers to tell which participant fixed a particular tile. Thus, a

participant‘s score in the pre-test (alone) condition and his or her score on the post-test (group) condition were matched for

comparison.

After the pre- and post-test sessions, the researchers met

with all the participants in one of the classrooms used for the

experiment to explain the purpose of the test and why minimal deception was employed. All the participants in the study were given

an ink pen and an exercise book, regardless of whether the

participant was in the reward or no-reward condition. The gifts were

considered adequate compensation for the time the participants

spent in the research process.

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Design/Statistics

This experiment adopted a composite design in which all 40

participants performed in both alone and group conditions. However, half that number was randomly assigned to the reward condition

while the other half were assigned to the no-reward condition.

Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), because it provides a more

powerful test for pre-test post-test studies than difference score

(Dancey & Reidy, 2002), was adopted for data analysis.

Result FIGURE 2

Strict attention was paid to how participants placed the tiles

on the spaces demarcated on the board matrices. Only tiles that were

correctly placed were counted as correct. Data obtained in the study

were analyzed with analysis of covariance. The descriptive statistics showed that the number of tiles fixed by participants were more in

the pre-test (alone) condition (M=15.10; SD=2.27) than in the post-

test (group) condition (M=11.65; SD= 3.01). See Figure 2. An

evaluation of these scores showed that participants‘ scores on the

0

3

6

9

12

15

18

1A bar chart showing the mean number of tiles fixed in the alone and group

conditions

Alone Perf.

Group Perf.

Mefoh, P.; Effects of Group Size and Expetancy of Reward on Social Loafing

235

pre-test measure and their scores on the post-test measure differed

significantly, F (1, 37) = 4.82, P <.05). This result failed to reject the

first hypothesis that performance would be poorer in the group condition.

The result further indicated that more tiles were fixed by

participants assigned to the reward condition (M=13.05; SD= 2.72)

than those assigned to the no-reward condition (M=10.25; SD =

2.63). The two reward conditions (i.e., reward vs. no-reward) differed

significantly on the post-test measure after adjustment for the pre- test scores, F (1, 37) = 11.25, P <.05 (see Figure 3). This represented

an effect size of 0.23, showing that once pre-test scores were

partialled out, 23% of the variation in the number of tiles fixed on the

matrices can be accounted for by differing conditions of reward. This

result also failed to reject the second prediction that reward will reduce social loafing effect in the group condition.

FIGURE 3

A related t-test was used to compare the scores obtained by

participants assigned to the post-test/reward condition with the

scores they obtained in the pre-test measure. If the mean score obtained by participants in the post-test/reward condition was

meaningfully greater than the mean score obtained by the same

participants on the pre-test measure, it would mean that reward

increased productivity. This was not the case, instead the number of

0

3

6

9

12

15

18

1A bar chart showing the mean number of tiles fixed in the reward and no reward

conditions.

Reward Condition

No Reward condition

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tiles fixed by participants in the post-test/reward condition were

fewer (261) compared to their performance in the pre-test measure

(307). Analysis of these data showed that the difference between the group‘s post-test and pre-test scores was 2.15; and the t-value (3.25)

has an associated p-value of p<.004. This finding indicated that

although reward attenuated social loafing behavior, it not increase or

improve productivity.

Discussion This study sought to determine whether performance drop-off

would occur in the group condition and not in the alone condition;

and to examine whether reward will attenuate social loafing effect in

the group condition and probably increase productivity. Result

obtained in relation to the first objective showed that participants worked less hard in the group condition than in the alone condition.

This observation was consistent with previous studies (Karau &

Williams, 1995; Kravitz & Martin, 1986; Price & Harrison, 2006;

Weldon & Gargano, 1988), that social loafing engenders negative

consequences that affect groups. Like in most of those studies the

observation made in this experiment can be related to the theory of diffusion of responsibility. People working alone think they are

personally responsible for task outcome; but when they work in

groups, this feeling of responsibility diffuses to others. Rothwell

(2004) argued that large group sizes can cause individuals to feel lost

in the crowed. In this experiment, participants were led to believe that their scores on the post-test (group) condition would be added

together to those of nineteen other participants to arrive at the

group‘s total. Because the group size was too large, it was possible

that participants, especially those driven by their individuality felt

that their contribution will not be recognized, and this lowered their

motivation. When a group becomes very large, some people often feel that their efforts are not needed or will not be recognized (Kerr,

1989).

The second objective that reward will attenuate social loafing

effect in participants who were expecting reward was confirmed. The

performance mean score of participants assigned to the reward and no-reward conditions differed significantly in favour of participants

who were promised reward. The observation was consistent with

literature (e.g., Eisenbarger, Armeli & Pretz, 1998), that reward

control behaviour and facilitate performance. However, when an

individual believes that compensation was not allotted equally among

group members, the individual withdraws his/her individual efforts.

Mefoh, P.; Effects of Group Size and Expetancy of Reward on Social Loafing

237

In this experiment, because participants believed that distribution of

compensation would be equitable, they anticipated reward contingent

on group goal. This disposition probably reinforced the participants‘ desire to pursue group goals in order to benefit the group. That is,

participants in the reward condition were motivated to pursue group

goals and they had hoped that other group members will also

contribute to the group‘s performance.

The post hoc result showed that reward did not increase

productivity. Although reward significantly reduced social loafing effect, it failed to increase performance/productivity on the

experimental task. In the experiment, the performance of the

participants assigned to the post-test/reward condition was poorer

compare to their pre-test scores. It can be argued that when reward

can be obtained just by belonging to a group, group members sometimes become less committed to group goals, have lower levels

of performance, set lower goals for their own achievement and

constitute group whose performance suffers. Therefore, to use reward

to improve productivity, it should be merged with guiding individuals

to exhibit loyalty to group objectives. When people know the goal,

know how far they need to go and where the competition is, they are more inclined to work towards the goals than if they did not have

that knowledge.

In conclusion, this experiment collaborated with many

previous studies that social loafing was a pervasive characteristic of

working in groups. However, social loafing is not inevitable. Latane (1981) demonstrated that when individual performance was

monitored within the group situation, social striving rather than

social loafing occur. Creating structures where individual

contributions are observable, measurable and known to all team

members attenuate social loafing effect. This technique had remained

the best known solution to curbing social loafing effect in group settings. But because the contemporary World is becoming more

complex by each passing day, and because several tasks are co-

operative in nature, personal effort may be difficult, if not impossible

to monitor in such settings. It was this realization that caused the

researchers to examine the effect of reward in attenuating social loafing effect. The experiment demonstrated that reward attenuated

social loafing behavior on the experimental task, but did not quite

increase productivity. The finding tends to suggest that reward is

only but a single variable that may influence social loafing

behaviour/effect. This calls for more research, it may require an

integrative framework of analysis of the reward – other variable(s)

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interactions to understand the relationship between reward and

productivity in social loafing research.

Mefoh, P.; Effects of Group Size and Expetancy of Reward on Social Loafing

239

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