Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Week 12 discussion

Hey everybody,

One thing I found interesting about this weeks lecture was the point James made about overemphasizing the importance of leaders. I think this is evident in sport, I think that coaches get too much of the blame when teams are doing poorly and too much credit when teams ared doing well.

Another concept I think is worth discussing is social loafing. I think whether or not I social loaf depends greatly on my motivation level. For example if I have a group university assignment I generally put in more effort than usual so I dont let my group down. I would feel worse if I failed in a group task than if I failed on an individual task because not only do you have to deal with your own dissapointment but also your team mates. On the other hand, when I used to work at woolworths I always hoped there would be a few other staff on because that made it easier to bludge and get away with doing as little work as possible - I had very little motivation for stacking fruit.

What does everybody think about overemphasizing the importance of leaders? Is anyone guilty of social loafing? If so, in what situations do you social loaf?

Any opinions welcome!

Cheers, Mike

1 comment:

Rebekah said...

Hi Mike... good points.
I was talking with a few people today and we agreed with your opinion about the overemphesis of the leader. Although, we could not come up with many groups that seem to not have a leader (other than perhaps a social group- yet there has always been a powerful few in the social groups I have encountered)

I was thinking about social loafing... and I too worked at woolies in my teenage years- I was a checkout chick though.

On the checkouts we each had a scanning rate that would be posted upstairs on public display- and those people who had a slow rate were alays singled out.
I think this is a little bit of the 'individuation' that James was talking about.... singling people out within a large group.

It is a really interesting topic... but I do agree.. it is alot easier to loaf or bludge in a large group (like school).

Good luck with blog two...