You work for a software manufacturer, and the supervisor of your ...

[hbsimmons88]

You work for a software manufacturer, and the supervisor of your division has just informed your work team that the new software designed to give people access to the Internet keeps crashing.
 
  Your supervisor is under a deadline to detect the source of the problem and fix it, so he assigns you and four other employees to a bug detector group to find the problem and correct it. What will determine whether or not your group succeeds?

Question 2

Social facilitation and social loafing are two very different phenomena that occur in the presence of other people. When does each occur, and what determines whether performance is enhanced or diminished?
 
  What will be an ideal response?

[SamMuagrove]

Answer to Question 1

Answer: How well your group accomplishes its mission hinges on how qualified the most expert and talented bug detector member is and on how well group members share information. If there is only one expert, the team will fulfill its mission providing that: (1) the expert is willing to share his or her information, (2) group members will acknowledge his or her expertise, and (3) process loss doesn't occur (e.g., the most competent member is of low status so no one listens, or people don't listen to one another). To guard against process loss, the group should be sure to take sufficient time for the task within the constraints of the deadline. Further, the group should assign different tasks to different group members and encourage each member to share his or her unique information and perspective on the problem.

Answer to Question 2

Answer: To predict whether social facilitation or social loafing will occur, we first need to know whether individual performance will be evaluated. If it will be evaluated, social facilitation is likely to occur; if it will not be evaluated, social loafing will likely occur. To determine whether social facilitation and social loafing will increase or diminish performance, we need to know something about task difficulty. In social facilitation situations, performance on simple tasks is enhanced, whereas performance on complex tasks is diminished. In social loafing situations, just the opposite occurs; performance on complex tasks is enhanced, whereas performance on simple tasks is diminished.

[hbsimmons88]

Thank you!

[SamMuagrove]

Happy to help