Anything you can do, a robot could, too — and it could make people lazier. The corporate phenomenon known as “social loafing” — when a colleague doesn’t work as hard because others will pick up the ...

Now that improvements in technology mean that some robots work alongside humans, there is evidence that those humans have learned to see them as team-mates — and teamwork can have negative as well as ...

Holly has a degree in Medical Biochemistry from the University of Leicester. Her scientific interests include genomics, personalized medicine, and bioethics.View full profile Holly has a degree in ...

A hot potato: While there are plenty of justifiable fears about robots, AI, and general automation taking jobs, the technologies have also been hailed for their ability to augment human tasks. But a ...

Teamwork can be challenging. Teams often need to overcome an inherent inertia, which operates almost like an iron law of groups. The inherent inertia we refer to here is social loafing—the behavioral ...

People tend to cut corners and allow trusted colleagues to pick up the slack when working as a team, in a phenomenon known as social loafing. Now researchers have found that the same thing happens ...