Social Influences on Behavior

Social Influences on Behavior

Introduction

This paper explores the basic concepts of human interaction with regards to social loafing from a psychology perspective, and two examples of change of human behavior on the basis of social situations have also been discussed.

Discussion

Social loafing refers to the reduction in the effort that an individual makes when he is working in a team. This is because there are more than one individuals in the group who work together to attain the goal of the team. However, the leadership of the team leader plays a very crucial role because he plays a major role in keeping the team motivated and in making them work together with regards to the interest of the team to achieve the goal or the goals that have been defined. The teams can be formed for educational purpose of at the workplace.

Specific Behaviors

There are different kinds of people who work together in a team. From this, there are people who are hard working and some are intelligent. However, not every team member performs in the way like they perform when they work alone. This is because they know there are other team members who work and the result will be shared by everyone equally. This is the reason why the group members do not put extra efforts for the attainment of the goals.

Context

With regards to the example of team in which there are five members, the nature of all the members differs from one another. Similarly, their knowledge, skills and abilities also differ on the basis of which they perform; therefore, their behavior is different. In a situation when all the group members sit together to discuss about the project, there are members who speak a lot and participate a lot. This makes their role in the progress positive with regards to the progress of the team and decision-making. Moreover, there is also a member who does not speak at all and works really hard for the team. However, since he does not speak, his hard work is not given as much appreciation as he deserves and the ones who speak more take the credit. Besides this, there is another member who points out faults all the time in everything. This shows differences in behaviors and the way in which people behave (Hockenbury, 2009).

Analysis

With regards to the behaviors that have been discussed above, the consequences of the behavior of the group members differ. In terms of social psychology concepts, it can be said that the people yearn for worldly goals. The people who are social and highlight themselves are the ones who get rewarded. However, the hard work of the other people who do not speak and say anything is not appreciated. People who work hard are considered as donkeys and are not appreciated. Therefore, working hard is not a good idea; however, people must work in an intelligent manner. The group members who participate more and highlight themselves are the ones who get rewarded and ...