Ringelmann effect: general information, example and formula for calculation

2024 Author: Miguel Ramacey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 06:11

Psychology helps a person to understand himself, his actions and thoughts, but not only, it also affects the building of teams and the solution of purely business issues. In principle, its influence can be traced in everything. And the more discoveries this science makes, the better labor processes are optimized and the life of each individual is improved. One of these significant discoveries was made back in 1927, and it was called the "Ringelmann effect". For this, a series of curious experiments were carried out, which showed a rather interesting and seemingly illogical result. But unfortunately, not everyone still takes this information into account, and is still in the dark.

Experiments

The main purpose of the experiments was to prove that the result of group work is much more effective than the total work of each team member individually. It involved the most ordinary people who were asked to lift weights, after which their maximum result was recorded.

Then they began to be united into groups: first bya few people, and then already started in larger ones. The expected result was quite obvious: if one person can lift a specific weight, then two people will already master the weight twice or even more. This opinion, by the way, exists to this day.

Ringelmann effect and its results

But in practice, scientists have obtained amazing results. It turned out that together people can raise only 93 percent of the sum of their initial results. And when there are eight participants in the group, the result is only 49 percent of the potential results of labor. To consolidate the result, the subjects were given other experiments, for example, they were asked to pull the rope, but the effect remained the same.

Reason for results

In fact, everything is simple, if a person performs the task himself - he can only rely on himself, but in collective work, forces are already saved, this is the Ringelmann effect. An example is a well-known story about the inhabitants of one of the villages. Somehow they decided to put up a barrel of vodka for a general holiday, with the condition that everyone would bring a bucket from themselves. As a result, it turned out that it was filled with ordinary water. This happened because everyone decided to cheat, thinking that everyone else would bring alcohol, and against this background, his trick with water would not be noticed.

Thus, the Ringelmann effect is that the group manifests a general passivity. By acting, a person fixes the amount of his efforts, and when the work is divided among a group of people, less effort can be applied. In other words, whenthe manifestation of social passivity, the results will fall until they reach zero. By inertia, of course, at first the work will be done relatively well, but seeing how the partner reduces his efforts, no one wants to try with the same zeal.

Effect discovery story

In 1927, a group of scientists conducted classic experiments from psychology, thanks to which this effect was discovered. After the results of the experiments described above, it turned out to create a mathematical formula that allows you to calculate the average individual contribution of each person, and it looks something like this.

Average contribution=100-7(number of participants -1)

Thus you can mathematically calculate the Ringelmann effect, the formula shows that the average contribution of three people will be 86 percent, eight - only 51 percent.

Social laziness effect

Social laziness is also called the loss of motivation. The main factor in its manifestation is that the individual, working together with someone, begins to rely on partners in solving a variety of problems. At the same time, he does not notice that he is working worse, and continues to believe that he is investing his efforts in full.

This is the same Ringelmann effect. It should be borne in mind that its manifestation may be caused by unintentional actions.

Among the factors of overcoming laziness in society, it is worth highlighting the following:

1. Individual responsibility for performance. With an increase in the importance of the role of the individual, it is usually observedreduced manifestations of social laziness.
2. Group cohesion and friendship can improve work performance.



3. Group size also has a big impact: the more people, the worse the result will be.
4. Diversity of cultures and views, in other words, if there are representatives of several cultures in the group, then the productivity of such a team will far exceed the performance of like-minded people.
5. There is also a gender factor: scientists have noticed that women are much less likely to show social laziness than men.

How to fight

Unfortunately, there is no means yet that allows you to overcome the Ringelmann effect. Naturally, now there is a lot of literature and trainings that promise to increase the efficiency in the team.

But all the same, with an increase in the group, productivity will decrease, everyone will rely on the other. This is a normal psychological reaction of a person to these circumstances.

Is there a rebuttal?

In connection with the current situation, scientists simply needed to set a goal: to find and prove the existence of conditions that allow the group to produce a result that is not less, but, on the contrary, more. It was required that the efforts of the whole team give a greater effect than each of its members is able to provide individually. Scientists tried to prove that the Ringelmann effect does not always take place. Unfortunately, no refutation has yet been found, andsuch conditions are not open.

Motives for results

But scientists were able to understand the motives of a person in independent and collective work. In the first case, he thinks: “if I don’t do it, then who will,” and in the second, he thinks something like this: “I don’t like this job, let my partner do it.” If he does not feel the exclusive responsibility for the task, then he automatically begins to act within the framework of the law of conservation of energy. In other words, to work on the principle of “everything that I haven’t done, the other members of the group will finish.”