Social Loafing as Response to an Appraisal of Appropriate Effort

ABSTRACT

The second-chance hypothesis, which attributes social loafing to the actor's awareness that a co-worker provides a second opportunity for productivity on the task (Harcum, in press; Harcum & Badura, 1989) also predicts that the effort of one subject alone will be as low when a second trial on the same task is anticipated as when there is a partner. In the present study, the task of tapping on a panel “as fast as you can” was undertaken with instructions indicating either the presence of a teammate or individual performance. American undergraduates, working in pairs and expecting unidentified and pooled results, exhibited the usual social-loafing effect. Subjects working alone and expecting a second trial on the same task did not loaf on the first trial, however. A social-dilemma interpretation was refuted because subjects reported on a questionnaire that they did not expect poorer performance for subjects in pairs. These results are consistent with the concept of a set point for the effort that, on the basis of an external standard, a subject deems appropriate for a task.