Social Loafing

Individuals exert less effort when working in a group than when working alone. Accountability diffuses across the team and individual contribution becomes invisible.

• Ringelmann's rope-pulling experiment: people pull measurably less hard when part of a group than when pulling alone — effort decreases as group size grows.
• In brainstorming sessions, individuals generate more and better ideas alone than in groups of the same size.
• The 'bystander effect': the more people who witness an emergency, the less likely any individual is to help — everyone assumes someone else will act.