Social loafing and building an ethical small group

Social Loafing and Building an Ethical Small Group
Social loafing is the concept whereby individuals have a tendency of exerting less effort towards a task whenever they are in a group as compared to when they are working alone. Working in a group is viewed as a way of facilitating accomplishment of a task through pooling the talents and skills of the people in that group. Ethical group interactions can be promoted in many ways e. g. critical thinking, defensive versus supportive communication, resisting group think, etc.
Communication is very important to the members’ of the group relationship and the nature of their ethical choices. Those who participate in the dialogue are usually less interested in a given outcome than they working with together so as to come up with a solution. Through dialoguing, unpredictable results are established and they are not controlled by any member of the group.
Defensive versus supportive communication enables one to come across as judgmental, strategic communicator, neutrality and it also enables others who not willing to change, or the viewpoints of others change their mind. Productive conflict(substantive) results to positive outcomes . i. e. Better understanding of positions and arguments of others, higher moral reasoning, effective problem analysis, better self-understanding, creativity and change, better group cohesion, and the ability to tackle future conflicts. It is necessary to resist groupthink as it results in failure to exploring all alternatives, gathering relevant information, and the careful weighing of risks (Chang, Y. 2008).
In building an ethical small group, members reduce their efforts due to lack of moral responsibility, poor group structure and lack of fairness in the group. To raise participation and motivation, as a leader, it is important to emphasize on moral responsibility so that members can cooperate together, structuring of the task so that no individual secedes unless it’s the whole group, and making sure that all members of the group are rewarded fairly.

References
Chang, Y. (2008). Social loafing and moral emotions: The Janus-headed aspect of moral identity.