A team might face different forms of social inactivity:

  1. Equal effort: "Everybody is wasting time with nonsense, why shouldn't I?"
  2. The loss of personal responsibility: "I am lost among the crowd, what does it matter anyway?"
  3. The loss of motivation due to the sharing of rewards: "Why should I work harder than the others, if we all get the same reward in the end?"
  4. The loss of coordination, due to many people being assigned the same task: "We get in each other's way"

How can the risk of social inactivity be lowered? The problem can be contained:

  • if the task is stimulating and important;
  • if each individual is given merit for their results;
  • if every member of the team expects everybody to work hard.

Social inactivity implies a tendency to weaken individual effort as the size of the group grows.

social inactivity