Answer:
Social facilitation research suggests that presence of others leads to arousal and can motivate individuals to enhance their performance if they are already good at solving something. This enhancement occurs when a person's efforts are individually evaluated. It has been found that individuals work less hard in a group than they do when performing alone. This point to a phenomenon referred to as 'social loafing'. Social loafing is a reduction in individual effort when working on a collective task, i.e., one in which outputs are pooled with those of other group members. An example of such a task is the game of tug-of-w-ar. It is not possible for you to identify how much force each member of the team has been exerting. Such situations give opportunities to group members to relax and become a free rider. This phenomenon has been demonstrated in many experiments by Latane and his associates who asked group of male students to clap or cheer as loudly as possible as they (experimenters) were interested in knowing how much noise people make in social settings. They varied the group size, individuals were either alone or in groups of two, four and six. The results of the study showed that although the total amount of noise rose up, as size increased, the amount of noise produced by each participant dropped. In other words, each participant put in less effort as the group size increased. Social loafing occurs because: (a) Group members feel less responsible for the overall task being performed and therefore exert less effort. (b) Motivation of members decreases because they realise that their contributions will not be evaluated on individual basis. (c) The performance of the group is not to be compared with other groups. (d) There is an improper coordination (or no coordination) among members. (e) Belonging to the same group is not important for members. It is only an aggregate of individuals.
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