Throughout this entire course, the topic I found to be most meaningful and useful has been social loafing. The topic of social loafing is something that more people need to be aware of. The issue of social loafing is an unfortunate relevant issue in team type situations. Too often in team scenarios, there are team members that fail to fully engage and participate in the activity. This not only causes frustration with participating members, but is also causes unnecessary stress. Participating team members are left to pick up the slack that those who social loaf. Learning more about causes of social loafing and potential solutions could be a useful tool for team leaders and those team members who are participating. We also learned that in team situations, the more effort put forth by team members, the more effort seen by others in the team, the less likely they would be to social loaf. However, in situations where team members were not being seen as active, the more likely others are to also socially loaf. For teams to be successful, there has to be cohesion and mutual understanding of the mission and goals.
Social loafing can be repaired and teams can recover from social loafing situations. However, the problem has to be identified and the team members need to be willing to actually repair the situation.