Working In Groups Vs Working Individual

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Essay Annemieke Timmermans 534521 Working alone versus working in groups Often when asked to write an essay or to make an assignment for school, you have to do this with a group of other students. This often causes problems. For example, it is difficult to find the time to meet, since you work sometimes in different groups. Other problems that occur are that one person puts more effort into the assignment than the others, or there are communication problems. Since many problems can arise when working in groups, I believe it is better to work alone on an assignment than to work in groups. When working in groups, there are frequently one or more persons who do not offer as much energy into the task as the others. This event is called social loafing and is defined by Karau and Williams (1993) as “the tendency for individual to expend less effort when working collectively than when working individually” (p. 681). Another reason for people to work less hard in a group is called free-riding. It might be that the group members find their contribution unnecessary, as documented by Kerr and Bruun (1983). When one member of the group thinks that the other group members are better at making the essay or the assignment, he or she tends to sit back and let the others work out the problem, because he or she thinks their participation is not crucial. Free-riding causes losses if the effort of the free-riders is in fact not superfluous. In addition, you also feel more confident about your knowledge when working alone. Sometimes you think your other group members are better and as mentioned above you have a tendency to sit back. However, when you work alone you can feel very confident about your own knowledge, and you see that you can do much more than you think. Working
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