SOCIAL LOAFING AND SOCIAL COMPENSATION 579 e ation will be respe Social Compensation,Social Loafing,and Social Facilitation Possible Motives for Social Compensation We are not suggesting that the individual is concerned only to qucstion eth ial lo ial fn cor ollect out be a小 cdcothecyariousocialaclafionprog 198 put rth ir tion。 aluation is the nby mear 0 -confict (Baron,1986)can explain the results because.in obtaining a diffused individual evaluation,and this concer ons,the sam umber of people were phys ally pre ent with thals and Darley's (1987)notion that use thei plain the al c tion ugh we ar sting thatso ri- rsonal trust,the particip ants'efforts in the g the uld lead to social co ation.One such motive in ugh the evaluati ofthe Parti t to protect their co nd th ve condition,a fir nding no ny social facilita ion th uld manipu ndeed. the is also contrary to the co-worker or the cok of th s to test th ng Th is not the first tin The second vork on and williams (1985)found that on a ng ety a ing fro om combining s leads to b cinant to en a d in thi On the ot hand.when participar ght ge in t ork lati tudies to show .This then. is also t take credit for it;if th ive product is oor,then the ms a favo rable self evalu s in coary t whe in which the par ant is lov in iden 's n ntradict nd nding of their own inputs.Attemp s could b ecqet son anc am (198)and Szyma dki and imenter)from c cern for se ause of reduced evaluation nay be p t to av likely that concern for the experimenter's evaluation was more people's contributions,the potenc of the positive sahent【o our participants than was the r the n is gre( ly din or the to the outputs tot ng th lly,th hard be g that under certain co potential for a poor ct ine,1990 go beyond hiso nd its n when dual et noDd,tcouldnot SOCIAL LOAFING AND SOCIAL COMPENSATION 579 them to discount the task rather than to increase their effort when working with low ability co-workers. Social Compensation, Social Loafing, and Social Facilitation One interesting aspect of the social compensation effect is that, on the surface, performance appears to be "facilitated" when working in groups. It is natural, then, to question whether this finding could be better understood from a social facilita￾tion perspective. We do not believe the results of these studies are due to the various social facilitation processes put forth in the literature. Neither mere presence (Zajonc, 1980) nor distrac￾tion-conflict (Baron, 1986) can explain the results because, in all sessions, the same number of people were physically present at all sessions, providing the same amounts of arousal and dis￾traction. Evaluation apprehension (Cottrell, 1972) cannot ex￾plain the social compensation results in any simple manner, because regardless of their co-worker's efforts or their own level of interpersonal trust, the participants' efforts in the group per￾formance were equally unidentifiable and, hence, unevaluable. We have demonstrated a finding in which there is increased effort in a collective condition even though the evaluation of the participant is lower than in the coactive condition, a finding not predicted by any social facilitation theory. Indeed, the social compensation effect is also contrary to explanations given for social loafing. This is not the first time that participants have shown better performance collectively than coactively.8 Jackson and Williams (1985) found that on a complex task, less effort resulted in better performance. They proposed that the reduction in anxiety and evaluation appre￾hension resulting from combining efforts leads to better perfor￾mance when anxiety interferes with performance. The present social compensation effect, however, cannot be viewed in this light. The idea generation task used in the present experiments was a standard, relatively easy task that has been used in several studies to show the social loafing effect. This, then, is also the first demonstration of improved performance attributable to increased effort, as a result of working collectively. Contrary to social loafing, social compensation also occurs in collective tasks in which the participant is low in identifiability. Our explanation for the social compensation effect is not, however, contradictory to our understanding of social loafing. As Jackson and Williams (1985) and Szymanski and Harkins (1987) have suggested, working collectively is demotivating be￾cause of reduced evaluation. Presumably, people generally de￾sire a positive evaluation or want to avoid a negative evaluation. When their contribution to the product is pooled with other people's contributions, the potency of the positive or negative evaluation is greatly diminished. If people's contributions were made noticeable (even to themselves), either by increasing the monitorability of their outputs to the collective effort or by hav￾ing them work individually, then they would be motivated to work hard because of this potential evaluation. We are suggest￾ing that under certain conditions, the potential for a poor evalu￾ation of the group's performance will counteract the tendency to socially loaf. If a person expects that his or her co-worker will not perform well, then the person must go beyond his or her normal level of performance so that the group product and its evaluation will be respectable. Thus, the social compensation effect adds an additional piece to the puzzle of how individuals behave when working collectively. Possible Motives for Social Compensation We are not suggesting that the individual is concerned only with the direct evaluation of his or her own contribution, as is concluded in social loafing and social facilitation research. In￾stead, working on collective tasks without being individually identifiable compels individuals to be concerned for the evalua￾tion of the group. The group evaluation is their only means of obtaining a diffused individual evaluation, and this concern may result in social compensation when one's co-worker is not expected to adequately contribute. This view is consistent with Goethals and Darley's (1987) notion that people use their group's evaluation as a means of obtaining self-validation. Although we are suggesting that social compensation pri￾marily occurs because of people's concern for a favorable evalua￾tion of their performance, there are other possible motives that could lead to social compensation. One such motive involves altruistic concerns. Participants may want to protect their co￾workers from a poor evaluation, and thus may compensate when the co-worker is loafing. Future studies could manipulate the attractiveness of the co-worker or the cohesiveness of the co-workers to test these motives. The second motive suggests that when participants are work￾ing collectively with a loafing co-worker, they have something to gain and little to lose in terms of their own self-evaluation. If the collective product is poor, the participant can blame his or her co-worker; if the collective product is good, the participant can take credit for it. This might motivate the participant to work harder. On the other hand, when participants are working with a high effort co-worker, they have something to lose and little to gain. If the collective product is good, then the participant can￾not take credit for it; if the collective product is poor, then the participant must assume the blame. This might demotivate the participant. In expectancy-value terms, a favorable self-evalua￾tion is more contingent on individuals' performances when they are working with poorly performing co-workers, because they are more likely to attribute the group's performance to their own inputs. Attempts could be made in subsequent re￾search to separate concern for external evaluation (e.g., from the experimenter) from concern for self-evaluation. Although these explanations may be plausible causes for so￾cial compensation in some collective conditions, we think it is likely that concern for the experimenter's evaluation was more salient to our participants than was their concern for the well￾being of the experimenter or co-worker, or their concern for their own self-evaluation. 8 Of course, the broader body of small group literature suggests that groups can have positive effects on performance (e.g., Hackman & Morris, 1975; Laughlin & McGlynn, 1986; Moreland & Levine, 1990). In most of these studies, however, group performance was the primary focus, and even when individual effort was measured, it could not be separated from other factors such as incoordination