Social Loafing: Getting Groups to Work Well Together

PsyBlog has an excellent summary of the research on social loafing, the phenomena where people working in a group work less compared to when they work alone. Because we do so much group work, this is sometimes an issue.

The first research on social loafing came from Max Ringelmann way back in 1913 (Ringelmann, 1913). He had people pulling on a rope, and compared the maximum they could have pulled, based on individual test, to how much each person actually pulled. The results were, kind of, sad; with eight people, each one only pulled half as much as their maximum potential strength. A graph of Ringelmann’s data is shown below. If everyone pulled at their maximum the line would have stayed horizontal at 1.

ringelmann-data — The relative loafing of people working in a group. As the group gets larger, the amount of work per person decreases from its maximum of 1. Data from Ringelmann (1913)

The PsyBlog article points out three reasons why people tend to loaf in groups:

We expect others to loaf so we do it, too.
We feel more anonymous the larger the group, so we feel less need to put in the effort.
We often don’t have a clear idea about how much we need to contribute, so we don’t put in as much as we could.

This can be summed up in Latane’s Social Theory:

If a person is the target of social forces, increasing the number of other persons diminishes the relative social pressure on each person.

— Latane et al., 1979: Many hands make light the work: The causes and consequences of social loafing in the Journal of Personality and Social Psycology. Quote via Keith Rolag’s Website.

How do we deal with this

The key is making sure students are motivated to do the work. We want self-motivated students, but creating the right environment, especially by training students in how to work in a group will help.

Make sure students realize the importance of their work; this makes them more motivated.
Build group cohesion; team members contribute more if they value the group they’re in.
Make sure the group clearly and fairly divides the work. Let everyone be part of the decision making process so students have choices in what to do will help them be more invested in their part of the work.
Make sure each group member feels accountable for their share of the work.

A Brief Excursion into Mathematics

Ringelmann’s data falls on a remarkably straight line, so I used Excel to plot a trendline. As my algebra students know, you only need two points to write the equation of a line, however, Excel uses linear regression to get the best-fit line through all the data. Not all the data points will be on the line (sometimes none of them will be on the line) but the sum of the distance from each point to the line is minimized.

Curiously, since the data is pretty close to a straight line, you can extend the line to the x-axis to find out how many people it would take for no-one to be exerting any force at all. Students should be able to determine the equation of the line on their own, but you can get Excel to give you the equation of the trendline. From the plot we see:

y = -0.0732 x + 1.0707

At the x-axis, y = 0, so;

0 = -0.0732 x + 1.0707

solving for x we first subtract the constant, 1.0707 from both sides to get:

0 – 1.0707 = -0.0732 x + 1.0707 – 1.0707

giving:

-1.0707 = -0.0732 x

then divide by -0.0732 to isolate x:

$! \frac{-1.0707}{-0.0732} = \frac{-0.0732 x}{-0.0732}$

which yields:

x = 14.63

This means that with 15 people, no-one will be pulling on the rope. In fact, according to this equation, they’ll actually start pushing on the rope.

It’s an amazing result, but if you can find flaws with my argument or math, please let me know.

Geography of data

OK. For someone like me this map is just ridiculously addictive. Produced by Revolver Maps, it shows the locations of everyone who’s visited the Muddle since March 5th (2011). If you click on the map it will take you to their page where you can find out more about the locations of all those dots.

The points on the map are a fascinating result of a combination of population distribution, language, technologic infrastructure (and wealth), and the miscellaneous topics on which I post.

population_density_map_hits-1994-US — Hits on the Muddle (blue circles) after two days, overlayed on a population density map of the U.S.. (Population density map from the USDA).

Overlaying at the location of hits after two days, on a population density map of the U.S. shows the obvious: the more people there are, the more likely it is that someone would stumble upon my blog. The eastern half of the U.S. with its higher populations are well represented, as is the west coast, while the hits in between come from the major population centers.

The pattern of hits from Australia shows very precisely that the major population centers are along the coast and not in the arid interior.

population_density_map_1994-africa-hits — Map showing the hits on the Muddle (March 5-7) from Africa versus population density.

Africa, however, tells a much different story. The large population centers are along the equatorial belt of sub-Saharan Africa. But even now, there are very few if any hits from that region. I suspect that’s largely because of language and lack of access to the internet. The Muddle is not exactly the most popular on the internet, so it probably takes a lot of people on computers for a few to find their way to it. Contrast sub-Saharan Africa to South Africa, which is relatively wealthy, uses English as its lingua franca (working language), and has seen at least a few people hit the Muddle.

Members of the Commonwealth of Nations. Most of these countries were once part of the British Empire. (Image from Wikimedia Commons User:Applysense.)

Language also plays in big role in the pattern of hits from Europe and Asia. There are many English speakers in western Europe, a very high population density, and so a lot of hits, but the British Isles, as might be expected, are particularly well represented. Similarly in Asia, the members of the Commonwealth are show up disproportionately.

From the middle east, there have been a several hits from the wealthy small states like Bahrain and Qatar, but also a number from Egypt. The Egyptian interest in particular seems to stem from my posts on the recent revolution. No-one from that part of the world has commented on any of it so far, so I have no idea if they find the posts positive, negative, indifferent or whatever. I’d be curious to find out, since even negative feedback is important.

On the note of current events, my post on the plate tectonics of the earthquake in Japan has engendered quite a number of hits, and some positive feedback in the comments section and via email (one from a Japanese reader). In the week since the earthquake more than half the hits to the Muddle have been to that post, largely because it’s been popping up on the front page of the Google search for “plate tectonics earthquake Japan”.

countries-online — Recent visitors to the Muddle on March 15th, 5:00 AM.

It has been fascinating seeing people from so many different countries hitting my blog. Since most don’t comment, or drop me a note, blogging often feels quite lonely, like I’m just talking to myself. Self-reflection was the original purpose for this blog, and I find that combining writing and graphics really works for me as a way of expressing myself.

Yet, this blog would not be public if I did not have an insatiable urge to share. So thanks for reading, and don’t be afraid to comment. I am a Montessori middle school teacher after all, so I tend not to bite. Although, if you do try to post a comment and it doesn’t show up it may be because it got caught in my spam filter; there is a 1000:1 ratio of spam to legitimate comments so it’s hard for me to catch any mistakes. Sending me an email should fix that though.

Looking for the beat

Engine room,
It could never die, never,
Because it is nine months my mother make me check out she heartbeat.

—David Rudder (1988): from Engine Room

Despite those nine months, scientists have identified a condition called beat deafness, where people just can’t find the beat.

The article claims it’s rare. My wife tells me it must be genetic.

Enjoy the Silence

… an emerging body of research is suggesting that spending time alone, if done right, can be good for us — that certain tasks and thought processes are best carried out without anyone else around, and that even the most socially motivated among us should regularly be taking time to ourselves if we want to have fully developed personalities, and be capable of focus and creative thinking [my emphasis].

–Leon Neyfakh (2010): The Power of Lonely in The Boston Globe.

Every day (almost) we have half an hour blocked off for Personal World. It’s a time for reflection, a time to collect ourselves, and a time to be alone. Adolescents in general tend to be social animals, but, as Leon Neyfkh points out:

… a certain amount of solitude has been shown to help teenagers improve their moods and earn good grades in school.

–Leon Neyfakh (2010): The Power of Lonely in The Boston Globe.

Neyfakh’s article provides a nice roundup of research into the importance of solitude.

Volcanic eruption in Japan: Shinmodake

shinmoedake-eruption — Shinmodake Volcano in southern Japan (center). This picture predates the big earthquake. Image from NASA Earth Observatory: Shinmoe-dake Volcano Erupts on Kyushu..

The Shinmoedake Volcano erupted on January 19th after being dormant for two years, however, two days after the big Japanese earthquake, it began spewing ash once again. The two are not necessarily connected.

Volcanos and convergent margins go together. Typically, the plate being subducted melts as it is pushed deeper into the Earth and temperatures rise. It also helps that the water in the crust and sediment of the subducting plate makes it easier to melt, and makes the resulting magma much more volatile and explosive.

convergence-japan-volcanoes — The subducting plate melts producing volatile magma.

But although Shinmoedake is in Japan, it is not on the same tectonic boundary as the earthquake. The northern parts of Japan are where the Pacific Plate is being subducted beneath the Okhotsk Plate. This volcano is connected to the subduction of the Philippine Plate to the south.

japan-subduction-volc — The large earthquake's epicenter and the Shinmoedake volcano are on different plate margins. Image adapted from Wikimedia Commons user Sting.

This does not necessarily mean that the two occurrences are totally unrelated. Seismic waves from the big earthquake could have been enough to incite magma chambers that were just about ready to blow anyway.

The map below is centered on the series of craters in the region of the erupting volcano.

View Larger Map

A Diversity of Education

Pluralism … allows individual schools, educators, and providers to excel at something, rather than asking every school to excel at everything.

–Hess (2010): Doing the Same Thing Over and Over in AEI Outlook Series.

Frederic Hess’ new book advocates a diversity in educational formats. Steven Teles has a detailed review.

The Same Thing Over and Over: How School Reformers Get Stuck in Yesterday's Ideas by Frederic Hess.

Hess shares the same basic premise of most progressive, constructivist, educational approaches like Montessori’s, that students learn differently so they need different educational approaches. However, he takes this need for diverse educational environments further with the recognition that teachers are different so they will have their own educational philosophies and methods that work best for them, and that parents are different, with very different expectations about what education should be and what it should accomplish.

… the basic components of schooling—parents, children, school leaders, and teachers—are irreducibly diverse. Parents have different ideas about what a “well-educated” child is, and children differ quite significantly in temperament, aptitude, habits, and interests. School leaders vary as to how they think schools should be run, while teachers have different skill levels, enthusiasm for different tasks, and ideas about what children should learn and know.

… Educators will always be less effective if they are made to teach in a way that they believe is wrongheaded or that they haven’t bought into. Students will have difficulty learning if they are forced to work at a pace that is too fast or too slow, or if they are taught in a manner that doesn’t match their individual learning styles. Parents can be disengaged or hostile if the pedagogy, discipline, or school culture differ fundamentally from what they think is right for their child. And schools as a whole will be incoherent and disorganized if they cannot count on some baseline of agreement as to what—and who—the school is for.

— Teles (2011): One Size Doesn’t Fit All in Washington Monthly.

Although Hess works for the conservative American Enterprise Institute his own thought on education are far from traditional:

[T]here is value in nurturing diverse intellectual traditions, models of thought, bodies of knowledge, and modes of learning. It is prudent to embrace a system of schooling that nurtures a diverse set of skills, knowledge, and habits of mind. This allows us to foster intellectual diversity that enriches civil society and … [i]t allows individual schools, educators, and providers to excel at something, rather than asking every school to excel at everything.

–Hess (2010): Doing the Same Thing Over and Over in AEI Outlook Series.

Furthermore, Hess argues, the world has changed since the inception of universal education, but the educational system has not adapted to the changing needs and technology. He points out new innovations allowed by technology, like the School of One program in New York.

All of this is hard to argue with. It’s almost the standard constructivist critique of the current educational system, although constructivists tend to focus on how we’ve not applied all the stuff we’ve learned about pedagogy since the 19th century (Lillard, 2005 lays out this argument eloquently in Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius).

Hopefully, this book broadens and advances the arguments for reforming the educational system. It is a progressive view from a conservative organization. Yet it still begs the question of how do we get there from here, while dealing the serious concerns that greater diversity may well lead to some failures as well as successes. Ultimately, we end up with the same fairly intractable problem. However, how do you measure success where there is such a diversity of expectations for education?

Tsunami

The tsunami spawned by the recent earthquake off Japan did most of the damage we know about so far. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Center for Tsunami Research uses computer models to forecast, and provide warnings about, incoming tsunami waves. They have an amazing simulation showing the propagation of the recent tsunami across the Pacific Ocean (the YouTube version is here).

They’ve also posted an amazing graphic showing the wave heights in the Pacific Ocean.

680_20110311-TsunamiWaveHeight — Tsunami wave heights modeled by NOAA. Note the colors only go up to 2 meters. The maximum wave heights (shown in black in this image), near the earthquake epicenter, were over 6 meters.

Of course, these are the results of computer simulations. As scientists, the people at NOAA who put together these plots are always trying to improve. Science involves a continuous series of refinements to better understand the world we live in, so the NOAA scientists compare their models to what really happen so they can learn something and do better in the future. Perhaps the best way to do this for the tsunami is by comparing the predictions of their models to the actual water height measured by tidal gages:

tsunami-model-data-honolulu — The red line is the tsunami's water height predicted by the NOAA computer models for Honolulu, Hawaii, while the black line is the actual water height, measured at a tidal gauge. Other comparisons can be found here.

You’ll notice that NOAA did not do a perfect job. They did get the amplitude (height) of the waves mostly right, but their timing was a little off. Since it’s about 6000 km from the earthquake epicenter to Honolulu, being off by a few minutes is no mean feat. Yet I’ll bet they’re still working on making it better, particularly since some of the other comparisons were not quite as good.

Finally, if you were wondering, attempting to surf a tsunami is not a good idea. For one thing, there is no nice face to surf on:

… a tsunami wave approaching land is more like a wall of whitewater. …. Since the wave is 100 miles long and the tail end of the wave is still traveling at 500 mph, the shore end of the wave becomes extremely thick, and is forced to run far inland, over streets and trees and houses. …. And remember, the water isn’t clean, but filled with everything dredged up from the sea floor and the land the wave runs over–garbage, parking meters, pieces of buildings, dead animals.

— Natural Hazards Hawaii, University of Hawaii at Hilo: Why you can’t surf a tsunami

UPDATE: Terrifying video of the tsunami: