When a large audience is asked to clap as loudly as possible, it was observed that the bigger the group size the more the increase in noise, but the amount of noise each participant made was reduced. This phenomenon is called:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → Social Loafing
Option (1) Social facilitation — Incorrect. Social facilitation is better performance in the presence of others, which happens when each person’s effort is individually evaluated. Here each person’s effort fell.
Option (2) Social Loafing — Correct. Social loafing is a reduction in individual effort when working on a collective task, one in which outputs are pooled. Latane and his associates showed it by asking groups of students to clap or cheer as loudly as possible: as the group grew, the total noise rose but the noise made by each participant fell.
Option (3) Social rejection — Incorrect. Social rejection means being excluded or ignored by others, for example not being allowed into a group of friends. Nobody is left out in the clapping experiment.
Option (4) Social participation — Incorrect. Social participation means taking part in the activities of a group or community. Everyone in the audience does take part; the finding is about how much effort each one puts in.
Note 1: The concepts in Options (3) and (4), ‘social rejection’ and ‘social participation’, are not in the 2023-24 NCERT, which NTA followed in 2024, or in NCERT (2025-26); explained here for the benefit of the students.
Note 2: A similar question was also asked in CUET (UG) 2023 on 30-05-2023 (Slot 2) and 02-06-2023 (Slot 3), and in CUET (UG) 2025 on 21-05-2025 (Slot 1).
NCERT (2025-26): “Social Loafing … Social loafing is a reduction in individual effort when working on a collective task, i.e. one in which outputs are pooled with those of other group members. An example of such a task is the game of tug-of-war. It is not possible for you to identify how much force each member of the team has been exerting. Such situations give opportunities to group members to relax and become a free rider. This phenomenon has been demonstrated in many experiments by Latane and his associates who asked group of male students to clap or cheer as loudly as possible as they (experimenters) were interested in knowing how much noise people make in social settings. They varied the group size; individuals were either alone, or in groups of two, four and six. The results of the study showed that although the total amount of noise rose up, as size increased, the amount of noise produced by each participant dropped. In other words, each participant put in less effort as the group size increased.…” |