Chris Betts

Towson University

One course concept that would be easy to teach in a play format would be social loafing. This would be done by simulating difficulty by causing the concept in question. It would be a teamwork based game in which certain members were secretly assigned to social loaf. The lesson plan would require a debriefing at the end in which the concept is talked about more in detail to fully comprehend what the activity was teaching.

Social loafing is the tendency for members of a group to put in less effort towards a shared goal on the assumption that others will pick up the slack. It is created by a loss of motivation when people are put into a group as slacking is much more obvious when alone than when in a large group of people who can make up for it. The more extrinsic the motivation is, the more likely one is to social loaf. Also the degree to which group performance versus individual performance influences the outcome will influence the amount of social loafing. The more important group performance is over individual performance, the greater the chance for social loafing. To reduce social loafing, some reward for individual performance must be offered or else there is less motivation to give individual input. This must be balance with group rewards to continue encouraging teamwork and keep the group working together as a group. A balance of group and individual reward is the best structure to reduce social loafing and keeping a stable group. It has also been suggested that group size correlates with social loafing. The more people in a group, the more diffuse the responsibility and the less likely an individual’s lack of contribution is likely to be noticed. There are more people to pick up t he slack or, at least, to expect to pick up the slack, resulting in more people social loafing or people social loafing more.

In order to teach demonstration in an activity that leads students to want to learn, everyone would be given instructions on how the activity would be run. About half of the students would be given instructions that explained they would be rated on how well their team performed and also be given individual ratings. The other half of the students would be given instructions only indicating the latter. All the students would be assigned the task of planning the name, logo, and motto for a fake company. If the class were large enough, multiple groups could be assigned. Each group would be assigned a specific line of business that their fake company is a part of and then given full freedom on their design with an encouragement to be creative and there are no wrong answers. This assignment should encourage people to participate through curiosity as it is likely something that few have experience in and the lack of pressure to do it “right” will encourage people to explore the possibilities. The challenge would also be enticing because, while there is no correct way to do it, obviously some plans would be better than others. The aspect of creating advertizing information for a company that does not exist, but would still need to function satisfies motivation from fantasy. Finally, the ability to gain higher ratings by coming up with good ideas and participating more will result in a feeling of control to further motivate the students to participate. Overall, given interesting enough products to market and enough resources to gather information(or enough freedom that a lack of resources matter little), the students should mostly find themselves motivated to participate or at least interested in the task at hand. The students who are told they will be rated on individual performance, however, will be more likely to put in all they have to offer as opposed to the ones only being rated on the final product. This will not necessarily be entirely true of all the students. Some students might be lazy by nature and some students might be incredibly motivated by nature, but given the half and half nature of the role assignment, at least a portion of each group should social loaf to a noticeable degree. This activity may function better the more people involved in it.

At the end of the activity, the teacher will give each person in the group a paper with a rating for their final product on it and, in the case of the ones who were told they would receive it, a rating on individual performance. After everyone has taken in their scores, the debriefing can begin. The teacher will ask the students about their experience working in the groups and discuss how they felt having a whole group to work with contributed to the project getting done. Discussion will be made for whether everyone put in their full effort. Eventually the discussion will move to the separate instructions and the teacher can specifically ask how motivated to contribute the people in different roles were in comparison to one another. This would lead into a lesson of the causes of social loafing, making sure to note that the social loafing in this activity was fabricated and that anyone who contributed to social loafing were not necessarily bad people. The discussion should highlight the impact of social loafing as well as the causes of it, such as lack of motivation to do individually well.

References

JASSAWALLA, A., SASHITTAL, H., & MALSHE, A. (2009). Students’ Perceptions of Social Loafing: Its Antecedents and Consequences in Undergraduate Business Classroom Teams. Academy Of Management Learning & Education, 8(1), 42-54. doi:10.5465/AMLE.2009.37012178

Overkill Studios. (2013). Payday 2 [PC video game]. Stockholm, Sweden: Starbreeze Studios

XIANGYU, Y., HUANHUAN, L., SHAN, J., FEI, P., & ZHONGXIN, L. (2014). GROUP LAZINESS: THE EFFECT OF SOCIAL LOAFING ON GROUP PERFORMANCE. Social Behavior & Personality: An International Journal, 42(3), 465-471.