What is the Hawthorne effect

2024 Author: Miguel Ramacey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 06:11

The Hawthorne effect originates from experiments carried out in the USA in 1924-1932. They were held in Chicago, at the Hawthorne works. That's where the name came from. The research was conducted by Elton Mayo, and his results influenced the formation of scientific management and the improvement of sociology as a science. After reading this article, you will find out what the experiment was and what was its role.

Elton Mayo

The scientist was born in Australia in 1880. Initially, Elton was supposed to become a doctor, but when he entered the university, he did not really show himself, which is why he was sent to Scotland to study psychopathology and medicine. His scientific views were formed thanks to the teachings of Freud and Durkheim.

After graduating from the Mayo Institute, he moved back to Australia, where he began teaching psychology, ethics and logic at the University of Queensland. During this period, the scientist became interested in management and began to publish articles on this topic.

Later Mayomoved to the United States, where he became a professor at Harvard University and was promoted to Head of Industrial Research.

The meaning of the effect

The essence of the Hawthorne effect is that some people increase their productivity and show better results if they take part in the experiment. They behave differently because of the attention given to them by scientists, and not because of any other factors. Often the result of the people participating in the studies is more favorable than under normal conditions. This is due to the fact that a person, showing interest while participating in the experiment, begins to act in a different way.

How the experiment went

The experiment was conducted at Western Electric's Hawthorne Works, as plant management noticed that the employees of one of the workshops began to work worse due to reduced lighting levels. The company was interested in raising labor productivity, and therefore gave the researchers free rein. The main task was to identify the dependence of employees' performance on physical working conditions.

Experiments lasted for 8 years, and the results amazed scientists. They noticed that during the observation of workers, labor efficiency increased dramatically. And it did not depend on the variables of physical labor. At the first stage, in the workshops where the studied groups of employees worked, the lighting was first increased, and then decreased. Then they noticed thatthe performance became greater, but with a decrease in light, it fell very slightly.

But after the end of the observation of workers, labor productivity returned to its usual parameters. The scientists concluded that this fact is due to the fact that during the work, employees knew about the observation and felt involved in something important.

During the research, several different experiments were carried out. Elton Mayo worked with labor variables such as:

• illumination of workplaces;
• isolation of individual groups of employees;
• wages;
• degree of job satisfaction.

In addition, the scientist constantly interviewed workers, finding out what exactly affected the increase in efficiency.

Conclusions of the experiment

Thus, the researchers came to the conclusion, which they later called the Hawthorne effect: the increase in labor productivity of the plant employees was due to the fact that they participated in the experiment and constantly thought about the importance of what was happening, about increased attention from side and involvement in the study.

All this helped improve productivity even in cases where there were no positive moments in the work. After the end of the experiment, Elton Mayo summed up:

• along with the formal structure of the work team, there is also an informal one that plays an important role;
• informal structure can be used to improve qualitywork.

The revelation of the Hawthorne effect in psychology is an impetus for development in the field of human relations in small social groups. Thanks to him, scientific management was formed, helping to increase the efficiency of management.

Criticism

In 2009, scientists at the University of Chicago became interested in the results of Elton Mayo's research and reanalyzed all of his work. After that, conclusions were drawn that during the experiment some factors played a role that had nothing to do with the Hawthorne effect. And the role of the effect itself in increasing labor productivity is overestimated.

Conclusion

Despite criticism, the Hawthorne experiments proved that it is possible to influence the psyche of people, thereby changing their attitude to work. And modern management could not exist without the research of Elton Mayo. After all, human relations are considered the main factor in the organization of labor in our time.