Explorative Study of Perceived Social Loafing in VR Group Discussion: A Comparison Between the Poster Presentation Environment and the Typical Conference Environment

Abstract

Social loafing is a phenomenon in which members of a group reduce individual motivation and effort. We explored the difference between social loafing perceived by the loafer himself/herself (Self Perceived Social Loafing; SPSL) and social loafing perceived by other group members in VR group discussion (Others Perceived Social Loafing; OPSL). We also investigated how this difference changes in two types of group discussion: the poster presentation environment and the typical conference environment. An experiment with a between-participant design was conducted, and participants conducted a desert survival task through VR group discussion. The results showed that, overall, there was only a weak positive correlation and not much agreement between SPSL and OPSL. The results also suggested that there were significant positive correlations between the indicators relating to conversation behavior and OPSL in the typical conference environment but not in the poster presentation environment. In addition, an analysis by Lasso was conducted to examine the relationship between OPSL and these indicators and found that three indicators relating to participants’ conversation behavior were selected in the typical conference environment, but none were selected in the poster presentation environment. Our study suggested that, in the typical conference environment, people judged the other people’s social loafing through their conversation behavior; on the other hand, people’s conversation behavior may not be used as significant indicators for social loafing in the poster presentation environment.