SOCIAL LOAFING AND SOCIAL COMPENSATION 577 b able to tell how they had performed indi dually (M- ou prief disc hf e few participants in the collective ondition who reported be at le Ied that the come up with as m uses for they could and that thev participants did not believe that their actual b tiCipamsgreheneiherpelieyhandedbiehmcaningoinesg able to that the exp basis of gr oup score Partic orte lly, ores would be In addit on,there was a 03.In the high meaninefulness condition.p oiRa the ce their es had heen co uld he prevent the expe nowing iker (M nts evalu the dition the ss task as e ing m task. the both more 432. 72 an meaningfulness task.They arder (M 74.3F,72 ions on the part of the experimente s=75.8vs.66.1,F0,71)=6.50,p<.02,on the high Results ingfuness task than on the low mea cr t was s the number of use that the pa ants came up A n-part olective work condition,and task meaningfuess variables C,2=5.10.p 03.Partici nts ge rated mo support for the success of king coactively(M 31.0 tha Participants n the abiliy fulness i ction.F.72-=10.46.p<.005.Partic nts in the ne sked to the high dition orked harder col ed high abilityc 28.9) diti Co-Worker k me ful 63 (M 12.3 71 332 ars that partic ants e ted both than did collective participants (M=21.9).In the low co o-workers,and he lity More participants in the coactive condition(7)than in the ionM=19.3),08) 3.01.D .005 Similarly.in the high SOCIAL LOAFING AND SOCIAL COMPENSATION 577 Once the participants were seated, the experimenter read some intro￾ductory instructions. In the low meaningfulness condition, the experi￾menter read: "I got an incomplete in one of my classes, so now I have to run this study. It's about everyday objects, or something like that. Here's your instructions." In the high meaningfulness condition, the experi￾menter read: "'You both will be working on a 'brainstorming-type' task. The purpose of this experiment is to examine rapid thinking, a quality that is thought to be highly correlated with intelligence in adults." Participants in both conditions were told that their task was to come up with as many uses for an object as they could and that they would be working side by side without communicating. Participants were then either politely handed (high meaningfulness) or thrown (low meaningfulness) instruction booklets that varied ac￾cording to the work condition. Although both booklets were clearly legible, booklets in the high meaningfulness condition were nicely printed laser copies, whereas booklets in the low meaningfulness con￾dition were homely looking typewritten copies. Finally, participants in the high meaningfulness condition were told that their scores would be compared with those of other participants who had been in similar research studies at other universities. In both work conditions, the experimenter told participants that he or she would count up their individual or group scores at the end of the session and tell them how many uses they had produced. Participants in the collective condition were also told that once their uses had been counted, the uses would be discarded, and that this would prevent the experimenter from knowing any person's individual score. Ability manipulation. At the point at which the experimenter "no￾ticed" that he or she had "forgotten" to bring a stopwatch and left the room to retrieve one, the confederate reported on his level of ability by saying one of two things. In the low co-worker ability condition, the confederate said, "I'm not very good at this sort of thing; I can never come up with any ideas." In the high co-worker ability condition, the confederate said, "I'm really good at this sort of thing; I can usually come up with a lot of ideas." Because the experimenter was not present during the confederate's statement of ability, there was no basis from which the participant could infer differential performance expecta￾tions on the part of the experimenter. Results Manipulation checks. Five questions (using 100-point scales) were included as manipulation checks for the ability, coactive/ collective work condition, and task meaningfulness variables. Several other questions also provided support for the success of the manipulations. Participants in the high co-worker ability condition reported that their co-workers had more ability (M = 70.3) than did par￾ticipants in the low co-worker ability condition (M = 60.0), F(l, 71) = 10.42, p < .005. Similarly, when participants were asked to guess how many uses their co-worker had come up with, they reported that they expected high ability co-workers to have gen￾erated more uses (M = 30.9) than low ability co-workers (M = 23.4), F(1,72) = 6.84, p < .02. Participants were also asked how hard they thought their co-worker had tried on the task. Partici￾pants attributed higher effort to high ability co-workers (M = 76.3) than to low ability co-workers (M= 65.6), F(\, 11) = 7.58, p < .01. Therefore, it appears that participants expected both high ability and high effort from high ability co-workers, and relatively less ability and less effort from low ability co-workers. More participants in the coactive condition (70%) than in the collective condition (8%) reported that the experimenter was interested in their individual performance, x 2 (l. N = 80) = 32.92, p < .0001. Similarly, participants in the coactive condi￾tion thought that the experimenter would be more likely to be able to tell how they had performed individually (M = 74.8) than did participants in the collective condition (Af= 44.1), F(i, 78) = 28.43, p < .0001. Furthermore, brief discussions with those few participants in the collective condition who reported thinking that the experimenter would be at least somewhat likely to know their individual performance revealed that these participants did not believe that their actual scores would be known, but thought instead that the experimenter might be able to make a rough estimate as to their performance on the basis of the total group score. Participants in the high meaningfulness condition reported finding the task more meaningful (M= 70.6) than participants in the low meaningfulness condition (M = 59.5), F(l, 72) = 4.78, p < .04. In addition, there was a significant Co-Worker Ability X Task Meaningfulness interaction, F(l, 72) = 5.04, p < .03. In the high meaningfulness condition, participants rated the task as being meaningful regardless of their co-worker's ability (low ability M = 69.9 and high ability M = 71.3), F(l, 36) < 1; however, in the low meaningfulness condition, partici￾pants rated the task as being less meaningful when they worked with a low ability co-worker (M= 47.5) than with a high ability co-worker (M = 71.6), F(l, 36) = 9.36, p < .005. Four other questions provide support for the claim that participants evalu￾ated the high meaningfulness task as being more important and meaningful than the low meaningfulness task. Specifically, they reported that the high meaningfulness task was both more difficult (Ms = 30.3 vs. 14.35), F(\, 72) = 13.83, p < .001, and more fun (Ms = 61.1 vs. 43.2), F(l, 72)= 10.20, p<. 005, than the low meaningfulness task. They also reported that they worked harder (Ms = 84.5 vs. 74.3), F(l, 72) = 8.99, p < .005, and that they guessed that their co-worker had worked harder (Ms = 75.8 vs. 66.1), F(l, 71) = 6.50, p < .02, on the high meaningfulness task than on the low meaningfulness task. Performance measures. The main dependent variable of in￾terest was the number of uses that the participants came up with. A 2 X 2 X 2 between-participants analysis of variance was performed on the data. Overall, there was a significant loafing effect, F(l, 72) = 5.10, p < .03. Participants generated more uses when working coactively (M = 31.0) than collectively (M = 26.4). There was also a significant Work Condition X Task Meaningfulness interaction, F(l, 72) = 10.46, p < .005. Partici￾pants in the low meaningfulness condition worked harder coac￾tively (M= 33.2) than collectively (M= 21.9), whereas partici￾pants in the high meaningfulness condition worked harder col￾lectively (M = 30.9) than coactively (M= 28.9). Most important, the predicted three-way Work Condition X Co-Worker Ability X Task Meaningfulness interaction was sig￾nificant, F(l, 72) = 7.81, p < .01. Within low task meaningful￾ness, a significant loafing effect was found, F(l, 36) = 12.39, p < .005. Coactive participants came up with more uses (M= 33.2) than did collective participants (M = 21.9). In the low co￾worker ability condition, participants produced more uses in the coactive condition (M = 34.9) than in the collective condi￾tion (M = 19.3), /(18) = 3.01, p < .005. Similarly, in the high ability condition, participants produced more uses in the coac￾tive condition (M = 31.4) than in the collective condition (M =