A group of students were playing tug-of-war as an activity during their games period. Some students gradually reduced their efforts thinking that there are many people who are pulling and so it would not make a difference if they reduced their effort. Identify the concept:-

Social Loafing

Social facilitation research suggests that presence of others leads to arousal and can motivate individuals to enhance their performance if they are already good at solving something. This enhancement occurs when a person’s efforts are individually evaluated. What would happen if efforts of an individual in a group are pooled so that you look at the performance of the group as a whole? Do you know what often happens? It has been found that individuals work less hard in a group than they do when performing alone. This points to a phenomenon referred to as ‘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.

The other concepts listed are not as relevant to the situation:

• Group polarization is the tendency for groups to make more extreme decisions than individuals would make on their own. This phenomenon occurs because groups can provide a sense of anonymity and insulation, which can reduce social pressures to conform to the group's opinion.

• Groupthink is a phenomenon in which group members strive for unanimity at the expense of critical thinking and independent judgment. This can lead to poor decision-making, as group members may suppress their own opinions in order to maintain group harmony.

• Social facilitation is the tendency for people to perform better on tasks when they are in the presence of others. This phenomenon is thought to occur because the presence of others can increase arousal and motivation, which can lead to improved performance.