A college finds social loafing in its student teams. Match each problem in List-I with the step in List-II that best reduces it.
| List-I | List-II |
|---|---|
| (A) Nobody can tell who did how much work in the final project. | (I) Strengthening group cohesiveness |
| (B) Members think the project is minor and of little value. | (II) Making people feel that their individual contribution is important |
| (C) Members see the team as only a collection of people and do not care about belonging to it. | (III) Making the efforts of each person identifiable |
| (D) Each member thinks his or her own share makes no difference to the result. | (IV) Increasing the apparent importance or value of a task |
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → A-III, B-IV, C-I, D-II
| List-I | List-II | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| (A) Nobody can tell who did how much work in the final project. | (III) Making the efforts of each person identifiable | When work cannot be traced to a person, the cure is making each person's efforts identifiable. |
| (B) Members think the project is minor and of little value. | (IV) Increasing the apparent importance or value of a task | A task seen as minor gets little effort, so raising its apparent importance or value helps. |
| (C) Members see the team as only a collection of people and do not care about belonging to it. | (I) Strengthening group cohesiveness | A team that is only an aggregate of individuals needs stronger cohesiveness, which raises motivation for a successful group outcome. |
| (D) Each member thinks his or her own share makes no difference to the result. | (II) Making people feel that their individual contribution is important | A member who feels his or her share does not count is helped by feeling that the individual contribution is important. |
NCERT (2026-27): “Social Loafing … “• Motivation of members decreases because they realise that their contributions will not be evaluated on individual basis.” “• The performance of the group is not to be compared with other groups.” “• There is an improper coordination (or no coordination) among members.” “• Belonging to the same group is not important for members. It is only an aggregate of individuals. Social loafing may be reduced by: • Making the efforts of each person identifiable.” “• Increasing the pressure to work hard (making group members committed to successful task performance).” “• Increasing the apparent importance or value of a task.” “• Making people feel that their individual contribution is important.” “• Strengthening group cohesiveness which increases the motivation for successful group outcome.” |