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In the above video, you see two pairs of students pulling on a rope; first individually then as a pair. Theoretically the effort should be additive and when they pull as a pair, it should be the sum of their individual efforts. The principle of social loafing tells us that it doesn’t work out that way.
Above, you can see the individual results above the line and below the line their results as a pair. I added the + and = signs afterwards to highlight that the effort of each individual decreased dramatically when pulling as a team.
This was our first time being able to do the demonstration, and it went incredibly well. All for a mere $7 purchase from Amazon of a luggage scale by my colleague, Yosup Joo.
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“Many hands make light the work: The causes and consequences of social loafing.” Latané, Bibb; Williams, Kipling; Harkins, Stephen Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 37(6), Jun 1979, 822-832. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.37.6.822