Social loafing under fatigue

In 2 experiments, 64 male students worked almost continuously for 20 hr wit hout sleep under varying social conditions. In Experiment 1, participants w orked either individually or as a group. As hypothesized, performance deter iorated over time, especially in the group condition, which allowed partici pants to loaf. In Experiment 2, all participants worked in groups. They wer e instructed that public feedback would be provided either on the group res ult only or on the individual results of all group members. As expected, wh en individual results were made public, performance deteriorated less. Over all, the data suggest that fatigue increases social loafing. However, both individualizing the task and providing public individual feedback seem to c ounteract these effects.