托福口语 Task 3

Social loafing is the tendency for individuals to exert less effort when working in a group than when working alone. This phenomenon occurs because individual contributions become less identifiable, leading to reduced motivation and accountability. Researchers have found that social loafing can be minimized when tasks are challenging, when group members feel their contributions are essential, or when group cohesion is high. However, in many everyday situations, people unconsciously reduce their effort, assuming others will compensate, which can lower overall group productivity.

Professor: Let me give you a classic example from my own research. I once observed a group of students assigned to a class project. They were asked to brainstorm ideas for a recycling campaign. The group had five members, and they were told to work together as a team. I videotaped their discussion and counted how many ideas each student contributed. Interestingly, two of the students did most of the talking, each offering about eight ideas. The other three, however, contributed only two or three ideas each, even though they were equally capable. When I later interviewed them privately, they admitted they thought the others would come up with enough ideas, so they didn't feel the need to work as hard. This perfectly illustrates social loafing—because their individual efforts were less visible in the group, they unconsciously reduced their input. However, when I told the group that each person's ideas would be evaluated individually, the same three students suddenly contributed many more ideas in the next session. So the key factor was whether individual effort was identifiable.