social loafing

Meaning: Social loafing is a group-behavior effect in social psychology. When effort is pooled into one group output, individuals often reduce their own effort. Commonly cited reasons are diffusion of responsibility (others will cover for me) and the sense that one's own contribution cannot be singled out or judged. Early evidence came from Ringelmann's rope-pulling studies, in which each person's pull fell as group size grew. Later work by Latané used shouting and clapping tasks. The effect tends to shrink when individual output is identifiable, the task is engaging or meaningful, the group is small, or members are cohesive.

On the MCAT: A passage describes a group project, tug-of-war or brainstorming task and compares effort per person when alone and in a group. Predict that individual effort drops in the group, and that it rises when each person's contribution is made visible or scored. The exam often asks you to contrast it with social facilitation, where the mere presence of others changes performance on an individual task. That presence tends to improve performance on simple or well-practiced tasks and impair it on difficult ones.

Common confusion: Students treat social loafing as a personality flaw or assume it happens in every group. It is a situational effect that depends on whether effort can be identified. Do not mix it up with social facilitation, which arises when a person is observed or evaluated, whereas loafing arises when effort is hidden within the group.