Background/Purpose: Especially important in the transition process is the role of the providers and parents and providers shifting from that of a manager of health to more of a coach. There is the opportunity for social loafing, a decrease in motivation and effort when individuals work collectively compared with when they work individually, to occur. This could impede one’s competence in performing the desired task Specific to social loafing is the free rider effect —when a person lacks putting forth effort because they believe someone else will pick up the slack which has been demonstrated in parent-child and student-teacher relationships. In this study we examined the prevalence of social loafing as defined by whether youth report that they know how to perform specific transition readiness skills but report that others do the tasks for them (as opposed to doing it themselves). Additionally we examined the relation of social loafing to youths disease related knowledge and self-rated health using pearson correlation coefficients. 

Methods: We surveyed 67 youth from two different pediatric rheumatology clinics in North America about their transition readiness using anchors from the TRAQ with revised response categories. The response categories assessed 1) whether they know how to do the specific task or not and 2) whether youth perform the task themselves or if someone else does the task for them.

Results: We were specifically interested in those who responded “No, someone else does it but I know how”. Of the 20 items on the TRAQ, the rate of endorsement of the “social loafing” response varied between 10% and 52%. For 15 of the 20 items, the rate of endorsement of the “Social loafing” response was at least 30%. a significant relation was observed between social loafing and disease knowledge and self-rated health  at the p < .05 level (.45 & .57, respectively).

Conclusion: Our results demonstrate that although many youth “know” how to perform various transition related tasks, very frequently they allow someone else to perform the task for them. In order for transition to adulthood to be successful, youth should be challenged to accept responsibility for performing task with the support of adults—called scaffolding which enhances youth’s competence and autonomy.   S

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ACR Meeting Abstracts - https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/examining-social-loafing-and-the-free-rider-effect-in-transition-readiness-among-youth-with-jsle/