This study investigated perceptions of social loafing in undergraduate student teams at a South African university. Student participants, randomly assigned to teams, received coursework instruction about team dynamics (including social loafing) and worked together for 12 weeks on a team assignment that was graded at the end of the semester. Students (n = 243) wrote individual reflections on the reasons for social loafing in student teams. Some (n = 24) also participated in an experiential social loafing exercise. These two sources of qualitative data were used in the development of a survey questionnaire, which was completed by 229 students. Fifty-four percent of the student participants (n = 229) perceived social loafing to have occurred in their teams. Four components of perceived social loafing behaviour were identified using factor analysis: unavailability, poor work quality, tech loafing and discussion non-contribution. Loafer apathy (a general lack of care or interest) predicted significant variance in each of the four loafing behaviours and social compensation. Team performance (assignment grades) was not related to the perceived presence social loafing in a team. Rather than reducing effort in response to perceived social loafing (the sucker effect), a social compensation effect occurred in the perceived presence of poor work quality. Effective leadership moderated the relationship between loafer apathy and tech loafing as well as loafer apathy and social compensation. Practical implications and recommendations for future research are presented.

In group work, the sucker-effect is a motivational loss in which effort is reduced due to feeling taken advantage of when other group members intentionally avoid work, known as free-riding. No previous studies on the sucker-effect have investigated moderating factors that can be attributed to the free-rider. The purpose of this study was to explore if agreeable behavior of a free-rider would moderate the sucker-effect, and if so, to what extent. Using an experimental design, students (n = 20) at Södertörn University served as participants. A systematic allocation toone of two conditions was used, the less agreeable and more agreeable. During the experiment a participant and a confederate worked in dyadson a disjunctive cooperative jigsaw puzzle task. The manipulation was the free-riding confederate's level of agreeableness. Self-rated effort andactual performance were measured. Using Mann-Whitney U-tests (α =.05, two-tailed), no significant differences were found in either of thedependent variables. In fact, by and large, no sucker-effect was observed at all. Other than manipulating the confederate's level of agreeableness, the design allowed for much more interaction in the dyads than previous studies on the sucker-effect have. It is discussed whether this interaction might have created an ingroup feeling, leading to the prevention of asucker-effect. In this study it thus seems that the free-rider's level of agreeableness does not moderate the sucker-effect. Also, meaningful interaction between group members might prevent a sucker-effect fromoccurring at all. However, due to the study's small sample size, theseresults are not definitive and should be taken with caution.