Which phenomenon is the tendency for individuals to exert less effort in a group than when working alone?

• A. Deindividuation
• B. Social Loafing
• C. Groupthink
• D. Norm

Answer: (B)

Social loafing occurs when individuals exert less effort in a group than when working alone. This happens because contributions can become diffused among group members, making personal effort seem less accountable or noticeable. People may rely on others to carry the workload, and if the task isn’t clearly tied to one person’s performance, motivation can drop. The effect tends to be stronger on tasks that are not highly engaging or where individual input isn’t easy to identify.

This differs from deindividuation, which involves losing self-awareness in a crowd and acting in ways you wouldn’t alone; from groupthink, which centers on the urge for harmony and consensus at the expense of critical evaluation; and from norms, which are shared expectations about behavior in a group. Social loafing specifically describes the reduction of individual effort within a group setting. To counteract it, make individual contributions identifiable, assign clear roles, and emphasize the personal importance of each member’s input.