Social Facilitation, Social Loafing, and Deindividuation (7B) - MCAT Psychological and Social Foundations

Individual accountability for contributions. Making contributions visible prevents hiding in the group.

Withholding effort because one expects others to carry the workload. Assumes others will compensate for one's reduced effort.

Arousal increases the likelihood of the dominant response. Zajonc's core principle linking arousal to behavior.

Individual effort decreases as group size increases. Classic finding showing coordination loss in groups.

Diffusion of responsibility. Responsibility spreads across group members.

Average individual output decreases as group size increases. Coordination losses and motivation losses compound.

Larger group size. More members means less individual accountability.

Loss of self-awareness and reduced restraint in a group. Group immersion diminishes individual identity.

Reducing effort to avoid being exploited when others are loafing. Self-protective response to perceived inequity.

Withholding effort while benefiting from others' work. Individuals exploit collective effort without contributing.

Increased impulsive or norm-driven behavior and reduced self-control. Loss of self-awareness weakens internal restraints.

Less social loafing; individual effort tends to increase. High task importance motivates individual effort despite group setting.

Improved performance on well-learned tasks due to others’ presence. Arousal from others' presence enhances dominant responses on familiar tasks.

Worsened performance on novel or complex tasks due to others’ presence. Arousal impairs performance when dominant response is incorrect for new tasks.

Physiological arousal. Zajonc proposed mere presence triggers arousal, affecting performance.

It increases the likelihood of the dominant response. Arousal makes the most practiced response more likely to occur.

Well-learned, most likely response in that situation. Dominant responses are automatic, habitual behaviors in familiar situations.

Performance increases (social facilitation). Simple tasks have correct dominant responses, so arousal helps performance.

Performance decreases (social inhibition). Complex tasks lack correct dominant responses, so arousal hurts performance.

Arousal from concern about being judged by others. Fear of negative evaluation by observers increases arousal and affects performance.

Arousal and performance change from others’ presence without evaluation. Presence alone causes arousal, even without possibility of judgment.

Reduced individual effort when working in a group. People exert less effort when their individual contribution is unidentifiable.

Diffusion of responsibility and reduced accountability. Individual contributions get lost in the group, reducing personal accountability.

Social loafing. When individual efforts can't be measured, people reduce their effort.

Increasing identifiability of individual contributions. Making individual efforts visible creates accountability and reduces loafing.

Withholding effort because others will do the work. Individuals rely on others to carry the workload without contributing equally.

Reducing effort to avoid being exploited by free riders. People reduce effort to avoid doing more than their share for free riders.

Loss of self-awareness and restraint in a group, often with anonymity. Group immersion and anonymity reduce individual identity and inhibitions.

Anonymity. Being unidentifiable removes personal accountability for behavior.