Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Group membership salience and task performance

Group membership salience and task performance Purpose – Social loafing is described in the literature as a frequent problem reducing individuals' performance when working in groups. This paper aims to utilize the social identity approach and proposes that under conditions of heightened group salience social loafing can be reduced and turned into social laboring (i.e. increased performance). Design/methodology/approach – Two experimental studies are conducted to examine the impact of participant's group membership salience on task performance. In Study 1, school teachers work either in coactive or in collective working conditions on brainstorming tasks. In Study 2, participants perform both a brainstorming task and a motor task. Findings – The results show social laboring effects. As predicted, participants in the high salient group conditions outperform participants in the low salient group conditions and the coactive individual condition. Practical implications – The results indicate that rather than individuating group members or tasks to overcome social loafing, managers can increase group performance by focusing on group members' perceptions of their groups as important and salient. Originality/value – The studies presented in this paper show that social identity theory and self categorization theory can fruitfully be applied to the field of group performance. The message of these studies for applied settings is that collective work in groups must not necessarily negatively impact performance, i.e. social loafing. By heightening the salience of group memberships groups can even outperform coactively working individuals. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Managerial Psychology Emerald Publishing

Group membership salience and task performance

Download PDF
18 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/emerald-publishing/group-membership-salience-and-task-performance-EoH25Eya1R
Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 Emerald Group Publishing Limited. All rights reserved.
ISSN
0268-3946
DOI
10.1108/02683940910989011
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Purpose – Social loafing is described in the literature as a frequent problem reducing individuals' performance when working in groups. This paper aims to utilize the social identity approach and proposes that under conditions of heightened group salience social loafing can be reduced and turned into social laboring (i.e. increased performance). Design/methodology/approach – Two experimental studies are conducted to examine the impact of participant's group membership salience on task performance. In Study 1, school teachers work either in coactive or in collective working conditions on brainstorming tasks. In Study 2, participants perform both a brainstorming task and a motor task. Findings – The results show social laboring effects. As predicted, participants in the high salient group conditions outperform participants in the low salient group conditions and the coactive individual condition. Practical implications – The results indicate that rather than individuating group members or tasks to overcome social loafing, managers can increase group performance by focusing on group members' perceptions of their groups as important and salient. Originality/value – The studies presented in this paper show that social identity theory and self categorization theory can fruitfully be applied to the field of group performance. The message of these studies for applied settings is that collective work in groups must not necessarily negatively impact performance, i.e. social loafing. By heightening the salience of group memberships groups can even outperform coactively working individuals.

Journal

Journal of Managerial Psychology – Emerald Publishing

Published: Sep 18, 2009

Keywords: Individual behaviour; Group work; Social dynamics

References

  • Comments on the motivational status of self‐esteem in social identity and intergroup discrimination
    Abrams, D.; Hogg, M.A.
  • The moderator mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations
    Baron, R.M.; Kenny, D.A.
  • Distraction‐conflict theory: progress and problems
    Baron, R.S.
  • Distraction as a source of drive in social facilitation research
    Baron, R.S.; Moore, D.; Sanders, G.S.
  • The effect of intergroup competition on group coordination: an experimental study
    Bornstein, G.; Gneezy, U.; Nagel, R.
  • Productivity loss in brainstorming groups: toward the solution of a riddle
    Diehl, M.; Stroebe, W.
  • Working hard to achieve self‐defining group goals: a social identity analysis
    Fielding, K.S.; Hogg, M.A.
  • Psychology in Organizations: The Social Identity Approach
    Haslam, S.A.
  • Motivation gains in groups: a brief review of the state of the art
    Hertel, G.
  • When liking begets solidarity: an experiment on the role of interpersonal attraction in psychological group formation
    Hogg, M.A.; Turner, J.C.
  • The Ringelmann effect: studies of group size and group performance
    Ingham, A.G.; Levinger, G.; Graves, J.; Peckham, V.
  • Ingroup salience, intergroup comparison, and individual performance and self‐esteem
    James, K.; Greenberg, J.
  • Interpersonal relationships and task performance: an examination of mediation processes in friendship and acquaintance groups
    Jehn, K.A.; Shah, P.P.
  • Group cohesiveness and social loafing: effects of a social interaction manipulation on individual motivation within groups
    Karau, S.J.; Hart, J.W.
  • Social loafing: a meta‐analytic review and theoretical integration
    Karau, S.J.; Williams, K.D.
  • The effects of group cohesiveness on social loafing and social compensation
    Karau, S.J.; Williams, K.D.
  • Motivation losses in small groups: a social dilemma analysis
    Kerr, N.
  • Ringelmann rediscovered: the original article
    Kravitz, D.A.; Martin, B.
  • Many hands make light the work: the causes and consequences of social loafing
    Latané, B.; Williams, K.; Harkins, S.
  • The salience of social categories
    Oakes, P.J.
  • Perceiving people as group members: the role of fit in the salience of social categorizations
    Oakes, P.J.; Turner, J.C.; Haslam, S.A.
  • When the going gets tough, the tough get going: social identification and individual effort in intergroup competition
    Ouwerkerk, J.W.; de Gilder, D.; de Vries, N.K.
  • Organizational identification: a meta‐analysis
    Riketta, M.
  • Foci of attachment in organizations: a meta‐analytic comparison of the strength and correlates of workgroup versus organizational identification and commitment
    Riketta, M.; van Dick, R.
  • Group Processes and Productivity
    Steiner, I.D.
  • An integrative theory of intergroup conflict
    Tajfel, H.; Turner, J.C.
  • The social identity theory of intergroup behavior
    Tajfel, H.; Turner, J.C.
  • Social categorization and intergroup behavior
    Tajfel, H.; Billig, M.G.; Bundy, R.P.; Flament, C.
  • Improving the creativity of organizational work groups
    Thompson, L.
  • The dyanmogenic factors in pacemaking and competition
    Triplett, N.
  • Towards a cognitive redefinition of the social group
    Turner, J.C.
  • Social identity and self‐categorization
    Turner, J.C.
  • Rediscovering the Social Group
    Turner, J.C.; Hogg, M.A.; Oakes, P.J.; Reicher, S.D.; Wetherell, M.S.
  • Category salience and organizational identification
    van Dick, R.; Wagner, U.; Stellmacher, J.; Christ, O.
  • Variation of outgroup presence and evaluation of the in‐group
    Wagner, U.; Ward, P.L.
  • Social loafing and social compensation: the effects of expectation of co‐worker performance
    Williams, K.D.; Karau, S.J.
  • Working on collective tasks: social loafing and social compensation
    Williams, K.D.; Karau, S.J.; Bourgeois, M.
  • Social identity and individual productivity within groups
    Worchel, S.; Rothgerber, H.; Day, E.A.; Hart, D.; Butemeyer, J.
  • Social facilitation
    Zajonc, R.