Implications Of Social Loafing In The Intragroup Competition

Research on group performance suggests that when individuals work together on a task, they tend to exert less effort than when they perform the same task individually (Jackson & Williams, 1985). This reduction of individual effort in groups has been termed social loafing (Latané, Williams, & Harkins, 1979). Several variables have been demonstrated to moderate social loafing. For example, social loafing can be reduced or eliminated by increasing the identifiability or evaluability of individual contributions (Williams, Harkins, & Latané, 1981), making the task more difficult (Harkins & Petty, 1982), or strengthening group cohesiveness (Karau & Hart 1998).

Competition, which is a major variable in sport situations, has been largely neglected

As explained by the collective effort model (Karau & Williams, 2001), individual performance is influenced by the perceptions of relations between individual efforts and expected outcomes. Thus, an individual engages in social loafing when the expectancy that that his or her actions can lead to the attainment of goals is lowered and when the subjective value of the goals is reduced (Law, 2016). In the intragroup competition condition, individuals are able to see a direct reflection of their efforts. If they perform well individually, they will win a prize. On the other hand, in the intragroup competition condition the efforts are pooled and the relationship between individual effort and goal attainment is not as direct. Hence, the lack of effort-outcome covariation leads to a decrease in individual effort. Social loafing will be seen in the intragroup competition condition because individuals can win even if they do not exert their full effort whereas in the intragroup competition condition their ability to win is directly influenced by their own effort. Individual effort in the intergroup competition condition still plays a role in the attainment of goals but it is not as substantial as in the intragroup competition condition thus producing social