The Relationships among Collective Efficacy, Team cohesion, Social Loafing, and Tug of War's Performance

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships among collective efficacy, team cohesion, social loafing, and Tug of War’s performance. Sixty Tug of War’s teams from 22 elementary schools, including 234 males and 244 females (mean age = 12.53 ±0.47) participated in this study . Instruments measured subjects’ Collective Efficacy Questionnaire and team cohesion with Group Environment Questionnaire (GEQ; Chou, 2000) in the first stage. Following the pen-and –pencil tests, subjects were assessed with their pulling performance under individual and collective pulling conditions. finally, the author collected subjects’ Tug of War competition records after each tournament. Pearson product-moment correlation found that collective efficacy, team cohesion, and Tug of War’s performance were all positively correlated. However, collective efficacy and team cohesion were both negatively correlated to social loafing, and social loafing was negatively correlated to Tug of War’s performance. Further, a multiple stepwise regression found that collective efficacy and task cohesion predicted Tug of War’s performance, This study supported the most research hypotheses and theoretical predictions. The authors suggested that future research should extend social loafing theory to other social-psychological constructs such as achievement goals, attributions, and sport enjoyment so to find its theoretical associations.