While singing during school assembly you can see that some children are singing whereas some are only moving their legs or not singing at all. This phenomenon can be explained by ____.
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: their presence leads to arousal and pushes a person to do better when her or his own effort is evaluated. The children who stop singing are doing less, not more.
Option (2) Social Loafing — Correct. Social loafing is a reduction in individual effort when working on a collective task, one in which the outputs are pooled with those of other group members. In a school assembly nobody can tell how loudly each child sings, so some children only move their lips or stop singing and become free riders.
Option (3) Social Inhibition — Incorrect. Social inhibition is the decline in performance of an unfamiliar or new task in the presence of others, because of arousal and the fear of being evaluated. The assembly song is a familiar group task, and the children are not doing worse out of nervousness; they are putting in less effort because their own voice cannot be picked out.
Option (4) Social Motivation — Incorrect. Social motivation is the general drive to act because of other people, for example the wish to be accepted, approved of or to belong to a group. It is a reason for putting in effort, not a drop in effort.
Note: The concept in Option (3), ‘social inhibition’, is not in the 2023-24 NCERT, which NTA followed in 2024, or in NCERT (2025-26); it was in the pre-rationalised NCERT, beside social facilitation. The concept in Option (4), ‘social motivation’, is not in any edition of NCERT. Both are explained here for the benefit of the students.
NCERT (2025-26): “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.…” |