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Everybody Clean Up! : Group Cohesion and Social Loafing in Common Kitchens Chiu, Vincent; Johnstone, Gabriel; Ren, Simon; Zeng, Jiayun; Zhang, Shiruo

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine whether increased awareness of group cohesion in common kitchens would reduce social loafing behaviour, as defined as leaving dishes in the sink for others to wash. Over the course of 4 weeks, measurements were taken twice a day in 3 common kitchens in the CIRS building at UBC, regarding the numbers of dishes left in the sinks and whether those dishes were rinsed. Each kitchen was assigned to either a control condition, involved a generic poster above the sink, or the experimental condition with a poster specifically intended to increase awareness of group cohesion. At the start of the third week, conditions of each common kitchen were switched, providing a within-subject design. We found there were no statistically significant differences between social loafing behavior and awareness of group cohesion, on either the number of dishes left in the sink (p = 0.383, α = 0.05) or the cleanliness of those dishes (p = 0.362, α = 0.05). Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”

Item Metadata

Title
Everybody Clean Up! : Group Cohesion and Social Loafing in Common Kitchens
Creator
Chiu, Vincent; Johnstone, Gabriel; Ren, Simon; Zeng, Jiayun; Zhang, Shiruo
Contributor
University of British Columbia. Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability; University of British Columbia. Sustainability Initiative; University of British Columbia. Office of the Vice-President, Students; University of British Columbia. Campus and Community Planning
Date Issued
2018-04-05
Description
The aim of this study was to examine whether increased awareness of group cohesion in common kitchens would reduce social loafing behaviour, as defined as leaving dishes in the sink for others to wash. Over the course of 4 weeks, measurements were taken twice a day in 3 common kitchens in the CIRS building at UBC, regarding the numbers of dishes left in the sinks and whether those dishes were rinsed. Each kitchen was assigned to either a control condition, involved a generic poster above the sink, or the experimental condition with a poster specifically intended to increase awareness of group cohesion. At the start of the third week, conditions of each common kitchen were switched, providing a within-subject design. We found there were no statistically significant differences between social loafing behavior and awareness of group cohesion, on either the number of dishes left in the sink (p = 0.383, α = 0.05) or the cleanliness of those dishes (p = 0.362, α = 0.05). Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”
Subject
Community; Wellbeing
Genre
Report
Type
Text
Language
eng
Series
UBC Social Ecological Economic Development Studies (SEEDS) Student Report; University of British Columbia. PSYC 321
Date Available
2018-11-19
Provider
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
DOI
10.14288/1.0373948
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/2429/67809
Affiliation
Arts, Faculty of; Psychology, Department of
Campus
UBCV
Peer Review Status
Unreviewed
Scholarly Level
Undergraduate
Rights URI
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Aggregated Source Repository
DSpace

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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International