Social Loafing

Light work?

Social psychology demonstrates that many hands don’t make particularly light work! When people work in a group at a shared task, they put in less effort than they would if they worked alone. This phenomenon is known as ‘social loafing’. When pulling on a rope for example, an individual will pull more vigorously when alone than when pulling as a member of a team. Effort is diminished when working in groups as participants perceive, perhaps subconsciously, that the task can still be completed despite them putting in less individual work.

This principle should inform the football coach who needs to devise the most appropriate structuring of available talent. It is generally recognized that, when playing two centre forwards, these players should offer divergent but complementary skills. For example, a strong target man should be played alongside a sharp goal-poacher. However, the phenomenon of social loafing demonstrates that it is not just complementary aspects of their play which should be taken into account: if the same types of player are fielded together then this could also lead to a diminution of effort as they offer similar modes of expertise. If two predatory strikers are selected in the same XI, then diffusion of responsibility would occur as both players subconsciously recognize that their partner can compensate for any lapse in individual efficacy. This is why Michael Owen and Jermain Defore would be an unhappy alliance in the England team.

It is not just with cooperative enterprises that social forces can have a negative impact upon effort. Recent research has shown that individuals perform better when they believe they are competing against less people. In studies of test situations, it was demonstrated that students performed better when they believed they had fewer rivals. Against a greater number of perceived competitors, the fruits of success seem more distant and intangible so the individual concludes that it is not worth trying as hard.

Again, this might inform the football coach who is trying to motivate his side for the World Cup. Teams that can take each game as it comes will have more chance of performing well and winning. This principle might actually favour underdog teams that do not expect to progress: they will play each game as an end in itself and focus their attention exclusively on the team that they are playing. More fancied sides, which expect to advance, might be weighed down with the realization that they have several more games to win if they wish to lift the trophy. This might also partially explain why England’s only decent performance in the group stage of a World Cup in the last decade was against Argentina. Against a key rival, England needed to channel their energy into the game in hand and this helped to suppress any awareness of future challenges.

So the successful side in South Africa is likely to have a sensible division of labour within the team to prevent social loafing. And psychologically they will not be hindered by the weight of the 31 other sides which are also vying for tournament success.