Productivity loss in performance groups: A motivation analysis.

TLDR

For nearly a century, psychologists have studied group performance, noting that social facilitation can enhance well‑learned tasks but impair novel ones, and that lost productivity arises when members see no value, no contingency, or high costs in contributing to a shared goal. The article proposes an expectancy‑theory framework to organize research on productivity loss in group settings, aiming to examine incentive, indispensability, and cost‑reduction solutions and suggest future research directions. The framework categorizes solutions into three broad strategies—providing incentives, making contributions indispensable, and reducing contribution costs—and evaluates each within the context of social loafing, free riding, and the sucker effect.

Abstract

This article presents a framework derived from expectancy theory for organizing the research on productivity loss among individuals combining their efforts into a common pool (i.e., the research on social loafing, free riding, and the sucker effect). Lost productivity is characterized as a problem of low motivation arising when individuals perceive no value to contributing, perceive no contingency between their contributions and achieving a desirable outcome, or perceive the costs of contributing to be excessive. Three broad categories of solutions, corresponding to each of the 3 sources of low productivity, are discussed: (a) providing incentives for contributing, (b) making contributions indispensable, and (c) decreasing the cost of contributing. Each of these solutions is examined, and directions for future research and the application of this framework to social dilemmas are discussed. For close to a century, psychologists and other social scientists have been interested in performance in groups. Traditionally, the topic of group performance has been dominated by social facilitation: the process whereby the presence of others enhances the performance of well-learned, dominant behaviors yet impairs the performance of novel, nondominant behaviors (Zajonc, 1965). The study of social facilitation can be traced back to an investigation by Triplett in 1898. Triplett demonstrated that children turned a fishing reel faster if they worked against a live competitor than if they worked alone. In the 9 decades since the initial demonstration by Triplett, hundreds of studies have investigated social facilitation, and numerous theories have been proposed to account for the phe