TPO 16 - Question 4

A sample Answer to this speaking in text:

The professor talks about Social Loafing in the lecture which is a decrease in personal effort, especially on a simple group task. In the study, test participants were asked to peel potatoes. Some of them worked alone, and was told their personal results will be recorded. Others worked as groups and was told their team results will be recorded. After the test, researchers took the average score of the people who worked as groups . The result shows that people working alone peeled a lot more potatoes than those worked as groups. Because people work harder when being held responsible directly.

1. Now, a study was done that illustrated this phenomenon.
2. In the study, people were given an ordinary task that everyone has probably done before.
3. They were simply asked to peel potatoes and to peel as many potatoes as possible in a given amount of time.
4. Ok, so some people worked alone and they were told that the number of potatoes they each peeled would be recorded.
5. Other peeled potatoes together as part of a group and they were told that only the total number of potatoes peeled would be recorded.
6. So it would be impossible to tell how many any one person had done.
7. Then researched compared the results of the people who worked alone and those that worked together to see if there was any difference, that is, they took the average score of the people working alone and compared it to the average score of the people working together in a group.
8. And they did discover a different.
9. It turns out that people working as a group peeled significantly fewer potatoes than people who worked alone.