Group projects: they’re inevitable. For some
people, they might seem like a blessing while others consider them cruel torture.
Over the years, I have participated in countless group assignments with the
majority of them being less than positive experiences. The primary reason for
my general dissatisfaction with group projects lies in the fact that I tend to
be one doing the majority of the work while the others sit back and do
relatively nothing. This ends up negatively impacting the final product (though
only marginally since I am a perfectionist and will not have my name associated
with poor or mediocre work). You would think that performance would be enhanced
when multiple individuals are contributing to the same effort, but in fact,
social psychology deems this a myth. What actually occurs is a process called social loafing in which the output/effort
of each group member is reduced (relative to if they were working alone) as a
result of the group activity/situation (Latané, Williams, & Harkins, 1979).
In essence, group members don’t “give it their all” since everyone’s
contributions are going to be pulled together in the end. This is precisely
what happened last semester when I was assigned a group paper. At first, things
were alright since we met and divided up tasks. Everyone seemed motivated and
it looked like things were going to come together nicely until our last couple
meetings. One member of our group continued to show up late and, to top it off,
they did not have their portion of the paper completed. In fact, they had not
even started it yet when it was due in less than a week. The rest of us had to
pick up slack in order to make sure all of the necessary parts were completed.
This led to a lot of last minute scrambling in order to get things done which
ultimately affected our own sections of the paper. None of us had done our best
work as a result of this group condition (and likely everyone else’s own
personal distractions being compounded). The grade we received was not bad, but
it definitely could have been higher. I imagine that if I had the opportunity
to complete that assignment on my own, I probably would have scored higher and
saved myself some of the stress.
(n=386)
Latané,
B., Williams, K., & Harkins, S. (1979). Many hands make light the work: The
causes and consequences of social loafing. Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 822-832.
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