Hawthorne eect

increased productivity for short periods. Thus the term

is used to identify any type of short-lived increase in
productivity.[3][6][7]
Interpretations and views vary. Parsons denes the
Hawthorne eect as the confounding that occurs if experimenters fail to realize how the consequences of subjects performance aect what subjects do [i.e. performance is aected possibly unconsciously by possible
positive or negative personal consequences not considered by the experimenter],[8] Elton Mayo describes it in
terms of a positive emotional eect due to the perception
of a sympathetic or interested observer. Clark and Sugrue (1991) say that uncontrolled novelty eects cause on
average 30% of a standard deviation (SD) rise (i.e. 50
63% score rise), which decays to small level after eight
weeks, Braverman argues that the studies really showed
that the workplace was not a system of bureaucratic formal organisation on the Weberian model, nor a system
of informal group relations, as in the interpretation of
Mayo and his followers but rather a system of power, of
class antagonisms,[9] and studies of the demand eect
also suggests that people might take on pleasing the experimenter as a goal.[10]

Aerial view of the Hawthorne Works, ca. 1925.

The Hawthorne eect (also referred to as the observer

eect) is a type of reactivity in which individuals modify or improve an aspect of their behavior in response to
their awareness of being observed.[1][2] The original research at the Hawthorne Works in Cicero Illinois on lighting changes and work structure changes such as working hours and break times were originally interpreted by
Elton Mayo and others to mean that paying attention to
overall worker needs would improve productivity. Later
interpretations such as that done by Landsberger suggested that the novelty of being research subjects and the
increased attention from such could lead to temporary increases in workers productivity. This interpretation was
dubbed the Hawthorne eect.

Evaluation of the Hawthorne eect continues in the

present day.[11][12][13]

History
1.1 Relay assembly experiments

The term was coined in 1950 by Henry A. Landsberger[3]

when analyzing earlier experiments from 192432 at the
Hawthorne Works (a Western Electric factory outside
Chicago). The Hawthorne Works had commissioned a
study to see if their workers would become more productive in higher or lower levels of light. The workers productivity seemed to improve when changes were
made, and slumped when the study ended. It was suggested that the productivity gain occurred as a result of
the motivational eect on the workers of the interest being shown in them.

In one of the studies, researchers chose two women as

test subjects and asked them to choose four other workers
to join the test group. Together the women worked in a
separate room over the course of ve years (19271932)
assembling telephone relays.
Output was measured mechanically by counting how
many nished relays each worker dropped down a chute.
This measuring began in secret two weeks before moving the women to an experiment room and continued
throughout the study. In the experiment room they had
a supervisor who discussed changes with them and at
times used their suggestions. Then the researchers spent
ve years measuring how dierent variables aected the
groups and individuals productivity. Some of the variables were:

This eect was observed for minute increases in illumination. In these lighting studies, light intensity was altered
to examine its eect on worker productivity. Most industrial/occupational psychology and organizational behavior textbooks refer to the illumination studies.[4] Only
occasionally are the rest of the studies mentioned.[5]

giving two 5-minute breaks (after a discussion with

them on the best length of time), and then changing to two 10-minute breaks (not their preference).
Productivity increased, but when they received six

Although illumination research of workplace lighting

formed the basis of the Hawthorne eect, other changes
such as maintaining clean work stations, clearing oors
of obstacles, and even relocating workstations resulted in
1

2
5-minute rests, they disliked it and reduced output.
providing food during the breaks
shortening the day by 30 minutes (output went up);
shortening it more (output per hour went up, but
overall output decreased); returning to the rst condition (where output peaked).

Changing a variable usually increased productivity, even

if the variable was just a change back to the original condition. However it is said that this is the natural process
of the human being adapting to the environment, without knowing the objective of the experiment occurring.
Researchers concluded that the workers worked harder
because they thought that they were being monitored individually.
Researchers hypothesized that choosing ones own
coworkers, working as a group, being treated as special
(as evidenced by working in a separate room), and having a sympathetic supervisor were the real reasons for the
productivity increase. One interpretation, mainly due to
Elton Mayo,[14] was that the six individuals became a
team and the team gave itself wholeheartedly and spontaneously to cooperation in the experiment. (There was a
second relay assembly test room study whose results were
not as signicant as the rst experiment.)

1.2

Bank wiring room experiments

The purpose of the next study was to nd out how payment incentives would aect productivity. The surprising
result was that productivity actually decreased. Workers
apparently had become suspicious that their productivity may have been boosted to justify ring some of the
workers later on.[15] The study was conducted by Elton
Mayo and W. Lloyd Warner between 1931 and 1932
on a group of fourteen men who put together telephone
switching equipment. The researchers found that although the workers were paid according to individual productivity, productivity decreased because the men were
afraid that the company would lower the base rate. Detailed observation of the men revealed the existence of
informal groups or cliques within the formal groups.
These cliques developed informal rules of behavior as
well as mechanisms to enforce them. The cliques served
to control group members and to manage bosses; when
bosses asked questions, clique members gave the same responses, even if they were untrue. These results show that
workers were more responsive to the social force of their
peer groups than to the control and incentives of management.

INTERPRETATION AND CRITICISM

anecdote, you can throw away the data.'"[16] Other researchers have attempted to explain the eects with various interpretations.
Adair warns of gross factual inaccuracy in most secondary publications on Hawthorne eect and that many
studies failed to nd it.[17] He argues that it should
be viewed as a variant of Orne's (1973) experimental
demand eect. So for Adair, the issue is that an experimental eect depends on the participants interpretation
of the situation; this is why manipulation checks are important in social sciences experiments. So he thinks it is
not awareness per se, nor special attention per se, but participants interpretation that must be investigated in order
to discover if/how the experimental conditions interact
with the participants goals. This can aect whether participants believe something, if they act on it or do not see
it as in their interest, etc.
Possible explanations for the Hawthorne eect include
the impact of feedback and motivation towards the experimenter. Receiving feedback on their performance may
improve their skills when an experiment provides this
feedback for the rst time.[8] Research on the demand effect also suggests that people may be motivated to please
the experimenter, at least if it does not conict with any
other motive.[10] They may also be suspicious of the purpose of the experimenter.[8] Therefore, Hawthorne eect
may only occur when there is usable feedback or a change
in motivation.
Parsons denes the Hawthorne eect as the confounding that occurs if experimenters fail to realize how the
consequences of subjects performance aect what subjects do [i.e. learning eects, both permanent skill
improvement and feedback-enabled adjustments to suit
current goals]. His key argument is that in the studies
where workers dropped their nished goods down chutes,
the participants had access to the counters of their work
rate.[8]
Mayo contended that the eect was due to the workers
reacting to the sympathy and interest of the observers.
He does say that this experiment is about testing overall
eect, not testing factors separately. He also discusses it
not really as an experimenter eect but as a management
eect: how management can make workers perform differently because they feel dierently. A lot to do with
feeling free, not feeling supervised but more in control as
a group. The experimental manipulations were important
in convincing the workers to feel this way: that conditions
were really dierent. The experiment was repeated with
similar eects on mica-splitting workers.[14]

Richard E. Clark and Brenda M. Sugrue (1991, p. 333)

in a review of educational research say that uncontrolled
novelty eects cause on average 30% of a standard deviation (SD) rise (i.e. 50%63% score rise), which decays
2 Interpretation and criticism
to small level after 8 weeks. In more detail: 50% of a SD
for up to 4 weeks; 30% of SD for 58 weeks; and 20%
Richard Nisbett has described the Hawthorne eect as
of SD for > 8 weeks, (which is < 1% of the variance).
'a gloried anecdote', saying that 'once you have got the

3
Harry Braverman points out that the Hawthorne tests
were based on industrial psychology and were investigating whether workers performance could be predicted by
pre-hire testing. The Hawthorne study showed that the
performance of workers had little relation to ability and
in fact often bore an inverse relation to test scores....[9]
Braverman argues that the studies really showed that the
workplace was not a system of bureaucratic formal organisation on the Weberian model, nor a system of informal group relations, as in the interpretation of Mayo and
his followers but rather a system of power, of class antagonisms. This discovery was a blow to those hoping
to apply the behavioral sciences to manipulate workers in
the interest of management.
The economists Steven Levitt and John A. List long pursued without success a search for the base data of the
original illumination experiments, before nding it in a
microlm at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee in
2011.[18] Re-analysing it, they found that the variance in
productivity could be fully accounted for by the fact that
the lighting changes were made on Sundays and therefore followed by Mondays when workers productivity
was refreshed by a day o.[19] This nding supported the
analysis of an article by S R G Jones in 1992 examining the relay experiments.[20][21] Despite the absence of
evidence for the Hawthorne Eect in the original study,
List has said that he remains condent that the eect is
genuine.[22]
It is also possible that the illumination experiments can be
explained by a longitudinal learning eect. Parsons has
declined to analyse the illumination experiments, on the
grounds that they have not been properly published and so
he cannot get at details, whereas he had extensive personal
communication with Roethlisberger and Dickson.[8]
Despite these alternative explanations, the Hawthorne effect has been well established in the empirical literature
beyond the original studies. The output (dependent)
variables were human work, and the educational eects
can be expected to be similar (but it is not so obvious
that medical eects would be). The experiments stand
as a warning about simple experiments on human participants viewed as if they were only material systems. There
is less certainty about the nature of the surprise factor,
other than it certainly depended on the mental states of
the participants: their knowledge, beliefs, etc.

Trial eect in clinical trials

Various medical scientists have studied possible trial

eect (clinical trial eect) in clinical trials.[23][24][25]
Some postulate that, beyond just attention and observation, there may be other factors involved, such as slightly
better care; slightly better compliance/adherence; and
selection bias. The latter may have several mechanisms:
(1) Physicians may tend to recruit patients who seem to

have better adherence potential and lesser likelihood of

future loss to follow-up. (2) The inclusion/exclusion criteria of trials often exclude at least some comorbidities;
although this is often necessary to prevent confounding,
it also means that trials may tend to work with healthier
patient subpopulations.

4 See also
Self-determination theory
John Henry eect
Reexivity (social theory)
Panopticon
Pygmalion eect
Placebo eect
Social facilitation
Stereotype threat
Novelty eect
Mass surveillance
Demand characteristics

5 References
[1] McCarney R, Warner J, Ilie S, van Haselen R, Grin
M, Fisher P; Warner; Ilie; Van Haselen; Grin; Fisher
(2007). The Hawthorne Eect: a randomised, controlled
trial. BMC Med Res Methodol 7: 30. doi:10.1186/14712288-7-30. PMC 1936999. PMID 17608932.
[2] Fox NS, Brennan JS, Chasen ST; Brennan; Chasen
(2008). Clinical estimation of fetal weight and the
Hawthorne eect. Eur. J. Obstet. Gynecol. Reprod.
Biol. 141 (2): 1114. doi:10.1016/j.ejogrb.2008.07.023.
PMID 18771841.
[3] Henry A. Landsberger, Hawthorne Revisited, Ithaca,
1958.
[4] The Industrial Organization Psychologist, Volume 41,
What We Teach Students About the Hawthorne Studies,
Santa Clara University 2004
[5] What We Teach Students About the Hawthorne Studies:
A Review of Content Within a Sample of Introductory IO and OB Textbooks
[6] Elton Mayo, Hawthorne and the Western Electric Company, The Social Problems of an Industrial Civilisation,
Routledge, 1949.
[7] Bowey, Dr. Angela M. MOTIVATION AT WORK: a
key issue in remuneration. Retrieved 22 November 2011.

EXTERNAL LINKS

[8] Parsons, H. M. (1974). What happened at Hawthorne?:

New evidence suggests the Hawthorne eect resulted
from operant reinforcement contingencies. Science 183
(4128): 922932. doi:10.1126/science.183.4128.922.
PMID 17756742.

[23] Menezes P, Miller WC, Wohl DA, Adimora AA, Leone

PA, Eron JJ; Miller; Wohl; Adimora; Leone; Miller; Eron
(2011), Does HAART ecacy translate to eectiveness? Evidence for a trial eect, Plos One 6 (7): e21824,
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0021824.

[9] Braverman, Harry (1974). Labor and Monopoly Capitalism. New York: Monthly Review Press. pp. 144145.
ISBN 0853453403.

[24] Braunholtz DA, Edwards SJ, Lilford RJ.; Edwards; Lilford (2001), Are randomized clinical trials good for
us (in the short term)? Evidence for a trial eect"",
J Clin Epidemiol 54 (3): 217224, doi:10.1016/s08954356(00)00305-x, PMID 11223318.

[10] Steele-Johnson, D.; Beauregard, Russell S.; Hoover, Paul

B.; Schmidt, Aaron M. (2000). Goal orientation and task
demand eects on motivation, aect, and performance.
The Journal of Applied Psychology 85 (5): 724738.
doi:10.1037/0021-9010.85.5.724. PMID 11055145.
[11] Kohli E, Ptak J, Smith R, Taylor E, Talbot EA, Kirkland
KB; Ptak; Smith; Taylor; Talbot; Kirkland (2009). Variability in the Hawthorne eect with regard to hand hygiene performance in high- and low-performing inpatient
care units. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 30 (3): 2225.
doi:10.1086/595692. PMID 19199530.
[12] Cocco G (2009). Erectile dysfunction after therapy with
metoprolol: the hawthorne eect. Cardiology 112 (3):
1747. doi:10.1159/000147951. PMID 18654082.
[13] Leonard KL (2008). Is patient satisfaction sensitive
to changes in the quality of care? An exploitation of
the Hawthorne eect. J Health Econ 27 (2): 44459.
doi:10.1016/j.jhealeco.2007.07.004. PMID 18192043.
[14] Mayo, Elton (1945) Social Problems of an Industrial Civilization. Boston: Division of Research, Graduate School
of Business Administration, Harvard University, p. 64
[15] Henslin, James M. (2008). Sociology: a down to earth
approach (9th ed.). Pearson Education. p. 140. ISBN
978-0-205-57023-2.
[16] Kolata, G. (December 6, 1998). Scientic Myths That
Are Too Good to Die. New York Times.
[17] Adair, J.G. (1984). The Hawthorne Eect: A reconsideration of the methodological artifact (PDF). Journal of
Applied Psychology 69 (2): 334345. doi:10.1037/00219010.69.2.334.
[18] BBC Radio 4 programme More Or Less, The Hawthorne
Eect, broadcast 12 October 2013, presented by Tim
Harford with contributions by John List
[19] Levitt, Steven D. & List, John A. (2011). Was There
Really a Hawthorne Eect at the Hawthorne Plant?
An Analysis of the Original Illumination Experiments.
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 3 (1):
224238. doi:10.1257/app.3.1.224.
[20] Light work. The Economist. June 6, 2009. p. 80.
[21] Jones, Stephen R. G. (1992). Was there a Hawthorne
eect?". American Journal of Sociology 98 (3): 451468.
doi:10.1086/230046. JSTOR 2781455.
[22] Podcast, More or Less 12 October 2013, from 6m 15 sec
in

[25] McCarney R, Warner J, Ilie S, van Haselen R, Grifn M, Fisher P; Warner; Ilie; Van Haselen; Grin;
Fisher (2007), The Hawthorne Eect: a randomised,
controlled trial, BMC Medical Research Methodology 7:
30, doi:10.1186/1471-2288-7-30, PMC 1936999, PMID
17608932.

6 External links
Evan Davis on the Hawthorne Eect, OpenLearn
from The Open University
The Hawthorne, Pygmalion, placebo and other expectancy eects: some notes, by Stephen W. Draper,
Department of Psychology, University of Glasgow.
BBC Radio 4: Mind Changers: The Hawthorne Effect
Harvard Business School and the Hawthorne Experiments (19241933), Harvard Business School.

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