Ringelman effect: general information, example and formula for calculation

Psychology helps a person understand themselves, their actions and thoughts, but not only, yet it affects the construction of teams and the solution of purely business issues. In principle, its influence can be traced in everything. And the more discoveries this science makes, the better the labor processes are optimized and the life of each individual is improved. One of such significant discoveries was made back in 1927, and he was named his "Ringelman effect". For this, a number of interesting experiments were conducted, which showed a rather interesting and illogical, seemingly, result. But unfortunately, until now not everyone takes into account this information, and is still in ignorance.

Experiments

The main purpose of the experiments was to prove that the result of group work is much more effective than the total work of each member of the team separately. It involved the most ordinary people who were asked to lift weights, after which their maximum result was recorded. Then they began to be grouped together: first a few people, and then they started to larger ones. The expected result was quite obvious: if one person can lift a specific weight, then two already weight the burden twice or even more. By the way, such an opinion exists to this day.

The Ringelman effect and its results

But in practice, scientists have achieved amazing results. It turned out that together, people can raise only 93 percent of the sum of their initial results. And when there are eight participants in the group, the result is only 49 percent of the potential labor outcomes. To fix the result, the subjects were given other experiments, for example, they were asked to pull the rope, but the effect remained the same.

Reasons for the results

In fact, everything is simple, if the person himself performs the task - he can rely only on himself, but in the collective work already the forces are saved, this is the Ringelman effect. An example is a well-known story about the inhabitants of one of the villages. Somehow they decided to put on a public holiday a barrel of vodka, with the proviso that everyone will bring a bucket of themselves. As a result, it turned out that it was filled with ordinary water. This happened, because everyone decided to cheat, thinking that everyone else would bring alcohol, and against this background his cunning with water would not be noticed.

Thus, Ringelmann's effect is that the group manifests a general passivity. Acting, the person fixes the magnitude of his efforts, and when the work is divided between a group of people, you can make less effort. In other words, with social passivity, the results will fall until they reach zero. By inertia, of course, at first the work will be performed relatively qualitatively, but seeing how the partner reduces their efforts, no one will want to try with the same zeal.

History of the opening effect

In 1927, a group of scientists conducted classical experiments from psychology, thanks to which this effect was discovered. After the results of the experiments described above, it was possible to create a mathematical formula that makes it possible to calculate the average individual contribution of each person, and it looks something like this.

Average contribution = 100-7 * (number of participants -1)

Thus, we can mathematically calculate the Ringelman effect, the formula shows that the average contribution of three people will be 86 percent, eight - just 51 percent.

The effect of social indolence

Social laziness is also called loss of motivation. The main factor of its manifestation is that the individual, working with someone, begins to rely on his companions in solving a variety of tasks. At the same time, he does not notice that he is working worse, and continues to believe that he is putting his energies into work to the full. This is the same Ringelman effect. It should be borne in mind that its manifestation can be caused by unintentional acts.

Among the factors of overcoming laziness in society is the following:

1. Individual responsibility for performance. With increasing importance of the role of the individual, there is usually a decrease in the manifestation of social laziness.
2. The cohesion of the group and the friendly attitude can increase the productivity of the work.
3. Great and the influence of the size of the group: the more people, the worse the result will be.
4. The diversity of cultures and views, in other words, if there are representatives of several cultures in the group, the productivity of such a collective will greatly exceed the efficiency of like-minded people.
5. There is also a gender factor: scientists have noticed that women are much less likely to show social laziness than men.

How to fight

Unfortunately, for the time being there is no means that can overcome the Ringelman effect. Naturally, now there is a lot of literature and trainings, which promise to improve efficiency in the team. But all the same, with the increase in the group productivity will decrease, everyone will rely on the other. This is a normal psychological response of a person to these circumstances.

Is there a refutation?

In connection with the current situation, the scientist simply needed to set a goal: to find and prove the existence of conditions that allow the group to produce the result not less, but, on the contrary, greater. It was required that the efforts of the whole team should have a greater effect than each member can provide separately. Scientists have tried to prove that the Ringelmann effect does not always take place. The refutation, unfortunately, has not been found so far, and such conditions are not open.

Reasons for results

But scientists were able to understand the motives of a person in independent and collective work. In the first case, he thinks: "if I do not do it, then who", and in the second he thinks something like this: "I do not like this job, let her partner do it." If he does not feel exclusive responsibility for the task, then he automatically begins to act within the framework of the law of energy conservation. In other words, to work on the principle "all that I did not finish, the other members of the group will finish."