Social Loafing

The potential for social loafing is recognized as a positive in the Marriage Market when bridegrooms with (tenured) government jobs, albeit at a lower salary, would be preferred by the bride's family. Large organizations lend themselves to social loafing, and the HR developments device various strategies -- divide into smaller groups, and more frequent appraisals etc.. -- to identify the loafers. Group bhajans are places one can easily identify loafers -- people who are merely lip-synching the GOVINDAAA... and not making the actual sound.

There is an old Abbot & Costello routine about loafing.... in their genre of double-entendre's:

 

Dear Cheeniya Sir,

Your social loafing article brought the following story to my mind.

A King was informed by his minister that the citizens of his country have lost patriotism and in order to test it, the King asked all citizens to pour a gallon of milk into a pond in his palace as he plans to do a project using that milk. Every citizen thought that mixing water in his milk is not going to be noticed when so many citizens are pouring milk and hence decided to mix a lot of wate in the milk. After everyone poured, the king assembled all the citizens and asked them to look into the pond and it was more of water than milk. He then explained that every citizen should make a sincere effort on their own without being directed or monitored. The citizens put their face down understood their role in their nation development.

 

@Hopikrishnan,

What a dialogue as to how to get paid for loafing!

 

Hello sir,

Nice post,you reminded me my school days, at prayer time,many students used to do murmuring of prayer song, pledge and national anthem.I did my schooling from KV, at our music class their also same issue, especially last row students.But those students couldn't escape from my talented music teacher,she asked them to sing individually hahahaa, obviously you can imagine what could be their performance.In our school diary we had all regional language songs, because of social loafing they didn't focus on prouncniation,swaram,they started at one point and landed somewhere.They got very bad scolding from teacher and punishment was, if they don't sing in music class,then need to sing in morning assembly prayer time, imagine their face expression.Front,middle row students laugh like anything at all their play.
Other incident I found at my apartment during my childhood days was singing Happy Birthday song,there also some stand back and do nothing, thinking it wouldn't make much difference if they didn't contribute.This attitude start from childhood which they never get rid off even after growing.
At job place some important tasks need to be performed quickly or effectively, we create groups to accomplish them. As groups are more effective than individuals in performing tasks.
As these groups have more members, resources, ability, to efficiently perform tasks, which gives synergy, but inspite of it, outcome is not guaranteed due to social loafing.Some people want to take credit of success by being in group.
If we see other side of story,there are some people I come across especially students,they want to be in group to motivate themselves,I found in my students,they can't study alone.I found some students prefer to study in library especially for professional courses,Bank exams, Group exams,.which keep them away from low motivation.All they need is social facilitation.
In this world we come across so many different nature of people around us.
Regards
Ratna