Influence of Group on Individual Behaviour

Groups are powerful because they shape how individuals behave. But the nature of this influence changes depending on whether a person is simply in the presence of others or actually working with them as part of a collective. Two key phenomena capture this difference: social facilitation and social loafing.

Social Facilitation

When an individual performs an activity alone but in the presence of others, the presence of those others creates arousal. For a person who is already skilled at the task, this arousal can enhance performance. The key condition here is that the individual’s effort is being evaluated individually — each person knows their own contribution can be seen and judged.

Social Loafing

What happens when individual efforts are pooled together and only the group’s overall performance is visible? Research shows that people often work less hard in a group than they do alone. This reduction in individual effort when working on a collective task — one where outputs are combined with those of other members — is called social loafing.

A classic example is tug-of-war. In a team pulling a rope, it is impossible to tell how much force each member is actually exerting. This gives individuals the chance to relax and become free riders. The phenomenon was demonstrated experimentally by Latane and his associates. They asked male students to clap or cheer as loudly as possible, either alone or in groups of two, four, or six. Although the total noise increased with group size, the amount of noise produced by each participant dropped. In other words, each person put in less effort as the group got larger.

Why does social loafing occur?

• Group members feel less personally responsible for the overall task, so they exert less effort.
• Motivation decreases because individuals realise their contributions will not be evaluated separately.
• The group’s performance is not being compared with other groups, so there is less pressure.
• There is improper coordination — or no coordination at all — among members.
• Belonging to the group is not important to the members; the group is just an aggregate of individuals, not a meaningful unit.

How can social loafing be reduced?

• Make each person’s effort identifiable so that free riding is visible.
• Increase the pressure to work hard by making group members committed to successful task performance.
• Increase the apparent importance or value of the task so that members care more about the outcome.
• Make people feel that their individual contribution truly matters.
• Strengthen group cohesiveness, which increases motivation for a successful group outcome.

Group Polarisation

Important decisions are usually taken by groups, not by individuals alone — for example, deciding whether to establish a school in a village. But groups do not always make moderate, balanced choices. Research shows that groups are more likely to take extreme decisions than individuals would on their own.

Consider a group of colleagues asked to decide the punishment for an employee caught taking a bribe. They might let the person off completely or decide to terminate their services — either way, the decision is more extreme than the moderate punishment that might fit the offence. Whatever the initial leaning of the group, that position becomes much stronger after discussion. This strengthening of the group’s initial position as a result of group interaction is called group polarisation. …