In this blog post, I will explore the causes of the recurring problem of free riding in group assignments and possible solutions through various hypotheses.
In a scientific experiment on ants, the 20% rule was discovered. This means that in an ant society, 20% of the ants do 80% of the work, and the remaining 80% of the ants do 20% of the work. What is even more interesting is that if you only collect the top 20% of the hard-working ants, only 20% of them will work hard. Even in the ant society, which is synonymous with diligence, there is free riding.
Just like ants, there are various people in human society. Extroverts and introverts, selfish people and altruistic people coexist. The science and technology writing course at Seoul National University also collaborates with various people to write papers and conduct research. One of the problems that often arises in group activities at universities is free riding. While everyone working hard to achieve the best results is ideal, a free rider is someone who tries to ride the coattails of others while doing nothing themselves. In this article, we will consider how to solve the problem of free riding in group work and, by extension, discuss the reasons why we should live correctly in our daily lives. All of these discussions will be based on various hypotheses that explain human altruism.
The first way to prevent free riding is to think about it through the reciprocity hypothesis. The reciprocity hypothesis can be summarized as “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” This hypothesis says that there is a possibility of retaliation among people. In the beginning, everyone is cooperative, but if the other person is selfish, they retaliate with an equally uncooperative attitude. There are two limitations to this hypothesis. First, when people recognize that the relationship will not last, and second, when several people are involved in an activity and it is not clear who is free-riding. When people realize that the relationship will not last, they will take their own advantage over time because they know that the other party does not have many opportunities to retaliate. Also, if you don’t know who is free-riding, you may ruin a common task to take revenge on the free-rider you don’t know well. Retaliation reduces the public good, and ultimately your own benefit.
Let’s apply this hypothesis to a real-life situation. In the beginning, everyone will be cooperative, but if someone tries to free-ride from the beginning, that person will be constantly retaliated against. Retaliation in group work can be in the form of a low evaluation in the end-of-semester evaluation of group members or constant pressure from group members. Since group work is bound to reveal who is a free rider, a specific person can be singled out for retaliation. Even if you know that you will never see that person again after the semester ends, you will feel nervous until the end because the evaluation of group members is conducted at the end of the semester. Therefore, the first solution to this problem is to ensure that free riders are punished. To do this, the weighting of the end-of-semester group evaluation should be increased. However, some people may not find low grades a big problem, so this punishment may not be a big problem for them. The following methods are suggested to solve the problem of free riding among these people.
The second method can be obtained from the communication hypothesis. To illustrate this hypothesis, I will introduce an experiment. This experiment is a game version of the tragedy of the commons, where people take as much of a public resource as they want. If you take a large amount of resources, the amount of resources you can receive depends on the choices of others. You can maximize your profit if you take a large amount while others take a small amount. But if everyone takes a large amount, the amount they can receive decreases. If everyone takes a small amount, they can get a satisfactory profit, although it is not the maximum profit. After playing this game about 10 times, people discuss their behavior. The results were surprising. The amount of resources taken by the people who had a discussion was reduced by more than half. Although no penalty or retaliation system was introduced, simply having a discussion made everyone behave in the right direction. The more discussions were held, the more effective they were. This experiment shows how important discussions and communication between people are.
Let’s apply this to a real-life situation. Members of the group often communicate and discuss writing papers and research. It is not simply about retaliating against someone, but about discussing ideal behavior for everyone to achieve good results. Considering that people made the right choices even when the choices were kept secret, as in the above experiment, the group activity that allows people to identify free-riders will be more effective. In other words, another way to solve the problem of free-riding is through frequent discussion and debate.
So far, we have considered the problem of free riding in a narrow range. Let’s expand this to answer the question “Is there a reason for us to live a righteous life?” The above methods list things to do to live a righteous life rather than reasons to live a righteous life. So, what is the reason for us to live a righteous life? First, we need to define what a righteous life is. The right way to live is not to act kindly to others at the expense of oneself, but to take care of oneself without causing harm to others. It is a win-win strategy in which both parties benefit. This cannot be said to be a wrong way to live. However, there may be situations in which one person inevitably has to suffer a loss. In this case, there is no other choice but to appeal to the individual’s morality, and if retaliation is ineffective and communication fails to narrow down the differences of opinion, there is no reason to behave properly. Except in cases where it is enforced by law or rules, there is no reason to behave properly in situations where it is not enforced.
So far, we have discussed how to solve the problem of free riders in group assignments, the basis for this, and whether we should extend this to live a proper life. Based on the reciprocity hypothesis, we said that we can solve this by giving free riders a definite retribution, and based on the communication hypothesis, we said that frequent discussions and consultations can help solve the problem. If we define a proper life as one in which we coexist with each other and take advantage of each other without causing harm, then I think there is a good reason to live properly. However, if someone is inevitably harmed by a situation that goes beyond this definition, then I see no reason to live properly. Of course, each person has a different definition of a proper life, and there may be people who put others first even if they themselves suffer, but this is only part of a choice, and I see no reason to sacrifice for others.
