Social loafing and cohesion

Social loafing

Tendency for individuals to decrease efforts when they are performing as apart of a team

Social loafing impact on performance

Has negative impact on individual and team performance, leading to reduced group cohesion

Traits of social loafing

Decreased effort at training

Arrives late, leaves early or does not show up

Expects teammates to cover their mistakes

Does not fulfil their designated role in the team

Causes of social loafing

Large group sizes

Individual athlete perceives other performers to be working at low effort- gives excuse for them to work at low effort as well

Belief that efforts will not make any difference

Task perceived as meaningless

Perceived weaker component

Strategies to minimise social loafing

Create a team contract

Develop rules of conduct

Create appropriate group sizes

Evaluate and provide individual feedback regularly

Rotate responsibilities and roles

Set team and individual goals

Publish statistics- make players accountable

Effect on team performance

Results in not every player performing to best effort, decreases performance

Indivudal effort towards team perfromacne is increased when each players input is identifiable

Group cohesion

Extent to which a group stays together and united in persuit of common goal or objectives

Task cohesion

Amount of committment from a group member to achieve predetermines common performance goal

Social cohestion

Degree that team members likes each other, and enjoy playing together

Reflects friendships within groups

Carrons model of Group cohesion

States that task and social cohesion can work independently

Task inpendent cohesion eg

Highly skilled and motivated team can still win even if they are not friends

Social dependent cohesion eg

Team could have little talent, but have high social cohesion (social sport)

Factors affecting cohesion and outcomes

Environmental

Leadership

Team

Personal

Environmental factors affecting cohesion and outcomes

Normative forces bringing and holding a group together

Contracts

Family/significant other expectations

Age

Father/son rule

Geographical location

Leadership factors affecting cohesion and outcomes

Leadership style used by coach and leadership group (authoritarian, democratic, laissez faire)

Most appropriate leadership style used

Mutual respect and positive relationships between athletes and leadership group

Team factors affecting cohesion and outcomes

Collective goal or aim

Characteristics of team

Team stability- maintaining same playing team overtime increases stability

Stability: cohesive relationship- stable teams will become cohesive, cohesive teams will become stable

Team factor outcome on cohestion

Prior successes and failures increase cohesion

Having common goals increase cohesion

Sharing an understanding of tactics and strategies increase cohesion

Personal factors affecting cohesion and outcomes

Individual characteristics of group members- cohesion increases if all group members have something in common eg, motivation

Task motivation

Affiliation motivation

Self motivation

Task motivation

Associated with task cohesion and being values in successful teams

Affiliation motivation

Associated with social cohesion and desire to be apart of a team

Self motivation

Associate when desire to obtain personal success and satisfaction by improving personal performance

Strategies increasing social cohesion

Increasing social interaction away from sport

Develop informal roles within the team

Resolve conflict quickly

Team building exercises

Establish team standard of presentation

Strategies increasing task cohesion

Communicating clearly and regularly

Develop pride within subunits

Clear and understood expectations / norms

Setting challenging and realistic goals for team and individuals

Be fair and consistent in dealing with player group

Benefits of cohesion

Communication and motivation extensive within group

Increase feeling of ‘team’ rather then indiviuals

Player work together to achieve team goal ahead of personal goals

High cohesiveness= higher chance of achieving goals

Players are more willing to stay and continue to play with the group

Barriers to cohesion

Personality clashes between members

Unclear/conflicting roles between group members

Frequent changes to the group

Disagreement on group objectives

Lack of communication

Power struggle between players

Team factors of coheson

Co acting activities

Mixed activities

Interacting activities

Co acting activities

Little/no communication between players, result determined by tallying individual scores. Members act independently, results achieved with no cohesiveness

Mixed activities

Combination of co-acting and interacting activities

Interacting activities

Requires high level of interaction between team members if goal is to be achieved

High communication required