Social Loafing: A Meta-Analytic Review and Theoretical Integration

Abstract

Social loafing is the tendency for individuals to expend less effort when working collectively than when working individually. A meta-analysis of 78 studies demonstrates that social loafing is robust and generalizes across tasks and S populations. A large number of variables were found to moderate social loafing. Evaluation potential, expectations of co-worker performance, task meaningfulness, and culture had espeically strong influence. These findings are interpreted in the light of a Collective Effort Model that integrates elements of expectancy-value, social identity, and self-validation theories.

Full text

INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS
AND
GROUP
PROCESSES
Social Loafing:
A
Meta-Analytic Review
and
Theoretical Integration
Steven
1
Karau
and
Kipling
D.
Williams
Social loafing is
the
tendency
for
individuals
to
expend less effort when working collectively than
when working individually.
A
meta-analysis of
78
studies demonstrates that social loafing
is
robust
and generalizes across tasks and
S
populations.
A large
number of variables
were
found
to
moderate
social loafing. Evaluation potential, expectations of co-worker performance, task meaningfulness,
and culture had especially strong influence. These findings are interpreted
in
the light of a Collec-
tive Effort Model that integrates elements
of
expectancy-value, social identity,
and
self-validation
theories.
Many
of
life's most important tasks
can
only
be
accom-
plished
in
groups,
and
many group tasks
are
collective tasks
that require
the
pooling of individual
members'
inputs.
Govern-
ment task forces, sports teams, organizational committees,
symphony
orchestras,
juries, and quality control teams provide
but a few examples of groups that combine individual efforts to
form
a
single product. Because collective work settings
are so
pervasive and indispensable, it
is
important
to
determine which
factors motivate
and
demotivate individuals within these
col-
lective contexts. Intuition might lead
to the
conclusion that
working with others should inspire individuals
to
maximize
their potential
and
work especially hard. Research
on
social
loafing, however, has revealed that individuals frequently exert
less effort
on
collective tasks than
on
individual tasks.
Formally, social
loafing
is the
reduction
in
motivation
and
effort when individuals work collectively compared with when
they work individually or
coactively.
When working collectively,
individuals work in the real or imagined presence of
others
with
whom they combine their inputs
to
form
a
single group prod-
uct. When working coactively, individuals work
in the
real
or
imagined presence of others, but their inputs are not combined
with
the
inputs
of
others.
Determining
the
conditions under
which individuals
do or do not
engage
in
social loafing
is a
problem
of
both theoretical
and
practical importance.
At a
practical level,
the
identification
of
moderating variables
may
Parts of this article were presented
at
the 1992 Midwestern Psycho-
logical Association convention
in
Chicago.
We thank Martin Bourgeois, Donal Carlston, Alice Eagly, Rebecca
Henry,
Janice
Kelly,
Norbert Kerr, Brian Mullen, Kristin Sommer, and
several anonymous reviewers
for
their valuable comments
on
drafts of
this article.
We
also thank Jeffrey Jackson
and
William Gabrenya
for
providing unpublished data.
Correspondence should
be
addressed
to
Steven
J.
Karau, Depart-
ment
of
Psychology, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina
29634-1511
or to
Kipling
D.
Williams, Department
of
Psychology,
University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio 43606-3390. Electronic mail
may
be sent
to
skarau@clemson.edu
or
kipling@uoft02.utoledo.edu.
suggest means
for
devising interventions by which social
loaf-
ing may
be reduced or overcome in everyday groups and organi-
zations. Latane, Williams,
&
Harkins (1979) even suggested
that social loafing
is a
type
of
social disease, having "negative
consequences
for
individuals, social institutions, and societies"
(p.
831). Perhaps
as
a result of this characterization, social
loaf-
ing research has been focused
on
identifying conditions under
which the effect can
be
reduced or eliminated. No studies have
been designed
to
determine what factors increase social
loaf-
ing. This emphasis on eliminating the effect is understandable,
given
the
potential applicability
of
social loafing research
to
real-world
contexts.
However, this emphasis on studying condi-
tions
in
which the effect is not likely to occur may
also
result
in
an underestimation
of
the
magnitude of social loafing across
a
wider range of situations.
At
a
theoretical level, specifying which variables moderate
social loafing is central
to
developing a fuller understanding of
the dynamics underlying
the
performance
and
motivation
of
both individuals and groups. The social loafing literature offers
a host
of
findings
relevant
to
theorists interested
in
evaluation
processes,
the self, and
group dynamics. Indeed,
in a
recent
review of social motivation, Geen
(1991)
regarded social loafing
as one
of only three dominant phenomena addressing
this
issue
in
the
1980s. Despite
the
theoretical importance
of
this
topic,
surprisingly little attention has been devoted
to
systematically
reviewing or integrating the social loafing research. Although
a
number
of
researchers have discussed social loafing
or
have
presented theories
of
particular causes
of
social loafing (e.g.,
Harkins,
1987;
Harkins
&
Szymanski, 1987; Jackson
& Wil-
liams,
1985; Latane, 1981; Mullen, 1983; Paulus, 1983; Shep-
perd,
1993;
Stroebe
&
Frey,
1982),
they
have
drawn their conclu-
sions from only small portions of the available empirical stud-
ies,
which were selected
by
unspecified criteria. Presently,
the
magnitude
and
consistency of social loafing across studies
has
never been estimated,
and
the extent
to
which particular vari-
ables moderate social loafing has remained unclear. Given
the
large empirical literature that
is
now available, a thorough inte-
gration
and
analysis
of
this research
is
long overdue.
Journal
of
Personality
and
Social Psychology, 1993. Vol.
65.
No.
4,
681-706
Copyright 1993
by the
American Psychological Association,
Inc.
0022-3514/93/$3.00
681
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