Social Behaviors as Determined by Different Arrangements of Social Consequences: Social Loafing, Social Facilitation, Deindividuation, and A Modified Social Loafing

Abstract

A synthesis is proposed such that social loafing, social facilitation, and deindividuation are viewed as different ways of arranging social consequences. The effects of such arrangements have been measured in past research through productive output (social loafing and social facilitation) or through anti normative behaviors (deindividuation). All three effects are manipulable by changing individual identifiability, evaluation, social identity, task difficulty, and presence in a group. In general, when people are in groups then there is less individual visibility and therefore fewer negative social consequences individually for reducing output or for increasing socially unacceptable behaviors, even if outputs are not explicitly pooled (traditional social loafing). Whereas social loafing and social facilitation have been empirically linked in past experiments, social loafing and deindividuation have not. An experiment was therefore conducted in which participants worked on a brainstorming task alone or in a group, and with or without individual identifiability. Effects of both a modified social loafing paradigm (reduced output in groups) and a deindividuation paradigm (more socially unacceptable responses in groups) were found simultaneously for the first time. Combined with other good evidence linking social loafing and social facilitation, this supports the idea that the three topics are not separate phenomena but different arrangements of social consequence variables.