Hawthorne Effect

The Hawthorne effect occurs when a group of people being studied change their activities or performance because they know they are under observation, even if they do not know what aspect of their behavior is being examined. The term comes from a series of experiments conducted in the 1920s at the Hawthorne Works, a Western Electric factory in Cicero, Illinois, that centered on ways to increase productivity in the workplace. Henry A. Landsberger coined the phrase Hawthorne effect in 1950 as he examined the results of the 1920s studies.

Overview

One of the results of the Industrial Revolution was the creation of large workrooms with machinery and many laborers performing specialized tasks. While the speed of manufacturing and assembling goods was much faster in the nineteenth century than it had been in the past, by the 1880s managers and executives were aware that productivity could be significantly increased. Frederick Winslow Taylor, a pioneer of management consulting and efficiency training, started a business in which he observed and studied workers and their motions to suggest how their efficiency and productivity could be increased.

By the 1920s, managers were not only interested in observing and measuring the way that workers functioned, but also how their environment impacted their productivity. It was in this newly expanded arena of research that the Hawthorne experiments took place. The Western Electric Company manufactured equipment for the Bell Telephone Company; their Hawthorne Works complex was not far from downtown Chicago. The experiments that took place at the center began in 1924 and lasted into the early 1930s. Under the direction of Elton Mayo, the experiments sought to determine the effects of changes in the working environment on productivity. Lighting was the first (and of all of the elements that changed, perhaps the most important) to be studied. One group was given more light to work in as opposed to a control group, whose lighting conditions remained typical for the plant. The productivity of the group with the better lighting improved. Further changes in the physical working area also resulted in improved productivity. At one point, however, the lighting was decreased and productivity still increased. When the experiments ceased altogether, productivity went back to its earlier norms. It began to occur to at least some of the researchers that perhaps it was not the physical changes that affected productivity, but the fact that the researchers were paying attention to the workers; this attention prompted them to work harder.

That reasoning seems to be the most significant result of the study. While the experiments were conducted in the 1920s, it was not until 1950 that Landsberger coined the term Hawthorne effect in retrospect to describe the idea that simply being observed can be a catalyst for change. The Hawthorne effect has frequently been mentioned in literature concerning studies of human performance and behavior. In some instances, such as studies analyzing the performance of doctors or hand-washing frequency at medical facilities, the Hawthorne effect has been discussed as a possible explanation for the study’s results and interpretations. While scientists have attempted to minimize the impact of the Hawthorne effect in their research, however, people in the business world may invoke it intentionally to improve or modify an aspect of job performance. At the same time, others continued to challenge the validity of the original experiments and of the Hawthorne effect itself.

Bibliography

Barnes, Brendon R. “The Hawthorne Effect in Community Trials in Developing Countries.” International Journal of Social Research Methodology, vol. 13, no. 4, 2010, pp. 357–70.

Fernald D. H., et al. “An Assessment of the Hawthorne Effect in Practice-Based Research.” Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, vol. 25, no. 1, 2012, pp. 83–86.

Guerrero, Dubert M., et al. “Beyond the Hawthorne Effect: Reduction of Clostridium difficile Environmental Contamination through Active Intervention to Improve Cleaning Practices.” Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, vol. 34, no. 5, 2013, pp. 524–26.

Kompier, Michiel A. J. “The ‘Hawthorne Effect’ Is a Myth, but What Keeps the Story Going?” Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment and Health, vol. 32, no. 5, 2006, pp. 402–12.

Leonard, Kenneth L., and Melkiory Masatu. “Using the Hawthorne Effect to Examine the Gap between a Doctor’s Best Possible Practice and Actual Performance." Journal of Development Economics, vol. 93, no. 2, 2010, pp. 226–34.

Levitt, Steven D., and John A. List. “Was There Really a Hawthorne Effect at the Hawthorne Plant? An Analysis of the Original Illumination Experiments.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, vol. 3, no. 1, 2011, pp. 224–38.

Perera, Ayesh. "Hawthorne Effect: Definition, How It Works, and How to Avoid It." Simply Psychology, 13 Feb. 2024, www.simplypsychology.org/hawthorne-effect.html. Accessed 11 Sept. 2024.

Rodgers, Paul A., and Joyce Yee, editors. The Routledge Companion to Design Research. Routledge, 2015.

Roethlisberger, F. J., and W. J. Dickson. Management and the Worker: An Account of a Research Program Conducted by the Western Electric Company, Hawthorne Works, Chicago. Harvard UP, 1939.

Srigley, J. A., et al. "Hand Hygiene Monitoring Technology: A Systematic Review of Efficacy." Journal of Hospital Infection, vol. 89, no. 1, 2015, pp. 51–60.

Teele, Dawn Langan, ed. Field Experiments and Their Critics: Essays on the Uses and Abuses of Experimentation in the Social Sciences. Yale UP, 2014.

Wickstrom, Gustav, and Tom Bendix. “The ‘Hawthorne Effect’—What Did the Original Hawthorne Studies Actually Show?” Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment and Health, vol. 26, no. 4, 2000, pp. 363–67.