You ace an exam and immediately think, “I’m just good at this.” You bomb the next one and think, “That test was written unfairly.” Same class, same effort level on paper, two completely different explanations. That flip is not a coincidence and it is not really about the test either.

You’re in a five-person group project. The deadline is Friday, the group chat has gone quiet, and somehow you’re the one rebuilding the entire slide deck at midnight. Psychologists have a name for what’s happening: social loafing, the drop in individual effort that shows up when people work together instead of alone. It isn’t simple laziness, and it isn’t inevitable....