The Ringelmann effect The Ringelmann is the tendency for individual members of a group to become increasingly less productive as the size of their group increases. The greater the number of people in the group becomes, the less each member will contribute. It is found by French agricultural engineer Maximilien Ringelmann. While he was studying on group performance and productivity, he found out that people working alone was putting in much more effort than the time they worked as groups.
Max Ringelmann took a rope and asked a person to pull on it. After that he asked a group of people to pull on the rope. He observed that every single person in the group put in less effort when they were in groups than the time that they were pulling the rope individually. Today, we call it the Ringelmann effect or the social loafing. When you are working in a group project, even if you are the leader of the project, not all of the responsibility is on you. Other members also share the responsibility of failure. Even if you are the reason why the project failed, because it is a group you would not attract attention. Even if you did nothing to help the project you still would not take attention.
However, if you are working on a project alone, the whole responsibility is on you. If you fail, it is your fault you can not blame others since there are no other people working with you. Additionally, you do all of the work that is needed to be done. So there is more work on you than the time you are working with a group. There is no work sharing, overall you put in more work working alone. Just like pulling on a rope. If you are alone you will have to pull to achieve the victory. If you are working in a group even if you do not pull at all there is a chance that people around you would bring you the victory.
While some people agree on this, some of them do not. I am a part of the group who agree with Max Ringelmann. I have personally experienced this effect. When I worked alone, I worked much harder than the time I worked in a group. I thought other members of the group would do the work and I did not need to give my best to the project.The Ringelmann Effect explains this situation.