The Effects of Group Size in the Furniture Assembly Task

Does the number of additional participants affect the physical performance or the psychological evaluation of participants on carrying out a task? This paper examines the effects of group size, either individuals, two-party or five-party, using the furniture assembly task. We use three behavioral indexes, i.e. degree of completion, time-to-completion, and duration of interaction with materials, in a physical performance evaluation. Furthermore, we use three psychological indexes, i.e., degrees of contribution, satisfaction, and familiarity, in a psychological evaluation. In duration of interaction with materials, time-to-completion, and degree of contribution, the members of two-person groups take longer or feel more individually significant than do the members of five-person groups. These results suggest that social loafing effects have emerged by increasing the number of participants. We expect these findings to help in designing relationality among people as well as between people and artifacts.