Social psychologists seem to love two types of studies. The ones that either tell us what we already know ‘People like attractive people’ or the ones that tell us the complete opposite of what we thing ‘The more people around, the less likely they are to help’. They like to get down to the nitty gritty of why we do the things we do.

For quite a while many researchers were doing studies like “How long does it take a person to put on or take off their shoes off? Do they do it faster if someone is watching?” (They then compared those times to how long it takes someone to put on and take off huge pink socks with someone watching.)  Basically they found that if you’re pretty good at something, then you’ll do it better if people are around, and conversely you’ll do worse if people are watching you do something you’re poor at.  That seems pretty obvious right? If you’re a billiards master then having a crowd watch you at the bar makes you even better. But if you barely scrape by in pool, you find yourself going from sinking a few balls to no balls, whilst you promise everyone you’re normally not that bad, I swear.

What about Tug-o-war? It’s kinds similar to pool; It’s a physical activity, and there can be people around, pulling alongside you. But in fact the more people there are on your tug-o-team the less the average person pulls (Ringelmann 1913). Of course there could be any number of explanations for this sub par performance. A guy called Alan Ingham set out to prove it more definitively. With his experiment he had people pulling on the rope, blindfolded, and he would tell them they were either pulling by themselves or with others. In reality they were the only person on their team. He found that people pull less when in groups. It wasn’t a huge difference, but still there; They pulled at 90% of their individual capacity if there was one other person and 85% if there were two other people.

So what’s the difference between playing pool and tug-o-war? Well it seems to be all about being able to differentiate each individual’s contribution. with pool people can keep track of each ball you sink, and see when you’re doing your part. With tug-o-war you could be pulling less than everyone else and no one would know. This applies to other areas too, anything where you can’t differentiate an individual’s work. This phenomenon has a fantastic name; Social Loafing.

Why does social loafing occur? There are a few things that can encourage it such as:

• If individual contributions can’t be easily evaluated by other people. No one’s going to know if we pull a little less hard, just as how Ashley the hole digger won’t know that Pat the hole digger shifted a lot less dirt.
• If we feel like our contribution isn’t important. I’m just an individual, what can I do?
• if we feel others are putting in less effort; We ‘match’ how much effort we put in to how much we think others are. Sam wasn’t even breaking a sweat, and here I am straining like a sucker.

How do you minimize social loafing? Just try to get rid of the things that cause it; Make sure that each person’s individual effort is recognized, and that everyone feels like their effort is important. A standard of how much and what type of work is expected can also help. Different groups of people are affected by it differently as well. Collectivist cultures, which emphasize a person’s place in a community rather than as an individual, are less affected by it, as are close knit groups of people, such as friends. No word on if it’s why politicians are so lazy though.