The way I think team production and
gift exchange applies most to my life is when I participate in group projects.
Group projects are often assigned to use your knowledge and other team members’
to share knowledge and expertise equally and split the work down the middle,
which creates a better end result for the project. Sounds like a great idea in
theory, much like the idea of sharing the marbles in Jonathan Haidt’s article.
Ideally, the people who do more work in a group project reap more of the
benefits just like Haidt suggests in his article in regards to the marbles, but
unfortunately, as I have experienced, that is not how it always works out.
I never realized there was a term
to describe the team member who does less work and gets the credit until I took
an AP Psychology class in high school. The term is “social loafing”, and it is
the urge we get to do less work when we know we can get the benefits regardless
of how much work we put in. There are ways to combat this issue in group
projects, as I have had some teachers
who have allowed for us to grade our team members anonymously so they can know
if some kids are not doing the same amount of work. Ideas like these help
eliminate social loafing, but it is still inevitable in some other situations.
Perhaps teachers instituting ways
to grade team members in group projects helps eliminate social loafing, but I
have experienced it on sports teams as well. When I was in 8th grade, my
baseball team won our championship. We were all ecstatic, but we had one team
member who showed up to few practices and wasn’t involved in most of our wins.
However, he still came to our team party and received a championship trophy
like the rest of us. He gets to call himself a champion, but he really loafed
through the entire season. At the end of the day, all he cared about was being
able to say he won a championship, so the payoff still worked out in his favor.
I am not saying I think this way,
but some people want to look back at their lives nd see what they have accrued
as opposed to what they have done along the way. They are unconcerned with the
hard work that goes into getting straight A’s or winning a sports championship
or making lots of money, they just want to be able to brag about what they have
accomplished. In the marble scenario, both parties are equally concerned with
the work they put into something and what they get out. I think this is
unrealistic, because some people will be much more concerned with what they get
out than what they put in.
I
think about half the time, teams have members who are good people care about
the work that goes into an A or the practices that go into winning. In these
cases, the success at the end is sweeter, because everyone involved really
cared about the project or season. The other half of the time, the people who
have to do more work end up being slightly bitter at the end even though they
experienced success. This relates to the economy because at the end of the day,
everyone is out for themselves. In the workplace, people will do less work if
they know they get the same payday at the end of the week. This can cause
anything from the downfall of a small project or an entire business.
Many students have come up with this same example of group project and the issue of social loafing, as you say. I wonder, however, if there might be more to the story than that. Is the person who is social loafing like that in all group projects? Or might the person actually want to be a contributor, but is facing some blockage that prevents that? How would you know it is one thing or another.
ReplyDeleteMy own belief, seeing students over many years, is that very few want to be labeled a slacker. So I tend to believe there is something else going on in most cases, but we don't let that something else come out into the open.
In past years teaching this class I have chided students to not memorize the material in the class, but instead "figure it out." However, students do still memorize after I suggest this to them and they seemingly spend less time than I would like to see on activities where they do figure it out. This may not exactly be social loafing (is the blogging for class an individual or a group activity?) but I think considering it gives some insight into the social loafing issue. You might consider it with you own blogging. Did you push on this prompt as much as you could have? If not, why not?
Great points professor,
ReplyDeleteOften times it is easy to label one group member a slacker while working on a group project especially when the groups are randomly assigned. I believe this because some people are just not good at working in groups with people especially when it is with people they do not necessarily know. Being able to work well within groups is a very valuable skill to have in the real world and by no means is it an easy skill to conquer. With this being said, I agree with you that in most cases this slacker does not want to be labeled a slacker and there are outside motives contributing to their lack of work. However, I think it is the job of the entire group to ensure that there is no slackers by communicating with the group and holding all members accountable for their work. Someone could be slacking because they do not agree with the work that is being done but if no one communicates with that person to why they are not doing their share of work then they will most likely continue to not work. To conclude, no one wants to be labeled as a slacker but one can be found in a lot of group projects because there is a lack of communication and leadership within the group.
John,
ReplyDeleteGreat post, I wrote about almost the exact same topic for my post this week so looks like great minds think alike. I definitely agree with you saying that hypothetically group work shouldn't be an issue and that work would obviously be divided up evenly. This could be due to a variety of factors such as: social loafing, bad incentive structure, or just general apathy from group members among other things. Prof. Arvan touches on it in his response to you and it is something I responded to as well and that is if there are any blockages that prevent students from helping out/ pull their weight.I believe it is a combination of if the group members know eachother (group members are not going to slack on people they are friends with, those consequences spill over outside of class) and how the assignment will be graded (group grade vs having an individual grade and group grade). A combination of these two factors as well as if someone in the group has immediately taken the lead on the work will determine if someone acts lazy or not on a group project.
John,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post. I have always been aware of what you describe as social loafers, but this is a term I wasn't aware of. I have always referred to this type of person as a free rider. I also really liked how you applied this to team sports. I remember a similar scenario I experienced while playing football in high school. I touched on this a little in my post, but focused a little more on the actual outcome of the team and how these free riders/social loafers effect the teams overall performance. I believe that a team of players who play well together has the chance to be much more successful than a team of selfish stars who only care about picking up a stats sheet.