Group Motivation

History

Do people work harder in groups or when alone? More than a century ago, Max Ringelmann showed that, for certain tasks, people working in a group were less productive than the same number of individuals working alone. Although it was soon well documented that group performance often differed from individual performance, it was not until much later that researchers demonstrated that these performance differences could be due to changes in task motivation. Given the applied implications of group motivation, research on this topic is conducted within several disciplines, including social psychology, industrial/organizational psychology, and organizational behavior. A number of scholars contributed ideas that were instrumental to advancing knowledge about group motivation, and their influence is still evident in contemporary theory and research.

Studying Group Motivation

In 1972, Ivan Steiner proposed a valuable set of ideas for understanding and assessing group motivation. Steiner suggested that groups fail to achieve their potential productivity because of losses in coordination and/or motivation. Whereas coordination losses occur when group members do not pool their resources and efforts optimally, motivation losses emerge from reductions in effort. But just how does one determine whether a loss in motivation has occurred?

One approach that has been frequently adopted is to compare the motivation level of a person working on a task alone to the motivation level of a group member working on the same task. For instance, in a classic study by Richard Ingham and his colleagues, participants were asked to pull on a rope either alone or in a group. In the group setting, the other group members were positioned behind the participant so they could not be seen, and, unbeknownst to the participant, were instructed not to pull on the rope. The researchers found that people working alone exerted greater force during the task than did those who thought they were working as members of a group.

To date, more than 100 studies have been conducted in a variety of settings (e.g., laboratories, organizations) showing that motivation levels are influenced by working in a group. Many of the results of these studies can be understood using the Collective Effort Model, which identifies two subjective judgments that determine group members' level of motivation. One is how instrumental their efforts are for reaching a goal, and the other is the value of that goal. Motivation is highest when group members believe their efforts will increase the chances of obtaining a goal and when they also value that goal. Motivation decreases if effort is not seen as instrumental and/or if group members do not place much value on the goal.

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