Social Loafing

Today, I think I will just tell you all a little bit about my team. These are the girls that I worked my ass off last year to get back on the field with, and the motivation is not there. Why is the motivation not there anymore? Social loafing is the answer to that question. So what is social loafing? According to Weinberg and Gould in Foundations of Sport and Exercise Psychology, Social Loafing is the phenomenon whereby individuals within a group put forth less than 100% effort because of losses in motivation. In essence, there is a diffusion of responsibility and indivduals believe that others in the group will pick up the slack. So, when is it most likely to occur? Well, as stated by the same authors in the same book; Social Loafing appears to occur more when an individual’s output cannot be independently evaluated, the task is perceived to be low in meaningfulness, the individual’s personal involvement in the task is low, a comparison against group standards is not possible, other individuals contributing to the collective effort are strangers, the individual’s teammates are seen as high in ability, and individuals perceive that their contribution to the outcome is redundant.

So how can this be applied to my team. Well, our coach did not recruit actively this past season, meaning that there is at most three people per position, and that would be pitching. Every other spot on the field has one, maybe two people to it. So using the definition above, we have a high possibility of social loafing as there is not a possibility for a comparison against group standards because we don't have the standards to go off of. In fact, I can see why they are doing this as they have no reason to work harder. Why work harder when there is no one who will take away your playing time? This shows that a good amount of my team lacks intrinsic motivation, they lack a drive to be better for themselves, and only will work to be better if and only if there is someone who could possibly take their playing time away from them. I really wish that there was that drive in more than just a few players, but unfortunately, you cannot build intrinsic motivation in people who do not wish to be motivated, and so the only thing that will change this climate is to gain the amount of players needed to create a competition to these positions.