Cognitive Loafing: The Effects of Accountability and Shared Responsibility on Cognitive Effort

The study reported here tests the effects of accountability and shared responsibility on cognitive effort. Fifty undergraduate students performed a multiattribute judgment task, and math models of their judgments were constructed. As expected, judges who shared responsibility for the judgment task and were not held accountable for their judgments used less complex judgment strategies than judges working alone. This replicates the social loafing effect found by Weldon and Gargano (1985) in an earlier study of cognitive effort. Results also showed that social loafing was reduced under conditions of individual accountability. Multiple judges who expected to justify their judgments worked as hard as individual judges on one measure of cognitive effort.