Group Participation in the Organization: Social Loafing as a Limitation of Group Effectiveness.

Organizational studies traditionally take the position that group participation brings out the best of its members. However, social psychologists are discovering that group participation may actually decrease the level of effort exerted by individual group members. This paper will first review the literature concerning social loafing. This paper will then present the results of a longitudinal study of social loafing using_ brainstorming tasks. The study found that social loafing does appear in communication contexts and produces implications for organizational research.