When a new management practice is piloted, performance often rises noticeably for the first few weeks. The people in charge are pleased that the new system has worked, but as time passes the numbers sometimes quietly drift back to where they were. Did performance really rise because the system was good, or was there another reason?
Management studies has a name it often brings up to explain this phenomenon: the “Hawthorne effect.” Put simply, the Hawthorne effect is “the phenomenon in which people behave differently from usual when they know they are being observed or paid attention to.” It means that what changes behavior is not the altered conditions but the very fact of receiving attention.
This article lays out the Hawthorne effect in an easy-to-follow way, from its definition and the origin of its name to the four stages of the Hawthorne studies, the debate surrounding the effect, and perspectives for applying it in the workplace.
How the Hawthorne Effect Works in the Workplace
What Is the Hawthorne Effect?
The Hawthorne effect is the phenomenon in which the act of observation changes the behavior of those being observed. When people know that someone is watching and recording their work, they concentrate a little harder, follow the rules more closely, and try to show themselves in a good light.
- Awareness of observation: the state of knowing that you are the subject of research or evaluation.
- Social attention: the feeling that a supervisor or researcher cares about you.
- Behavioral change: the resulting temporary change in productivity, attitude, and rule-following.
The name comes from the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Company, located near Chicago in the United States in the 1920s. In 1958, the sociologist Henry A. Landsberger gave the name “Hawthorne effect” to the series of studies conducted there.
As an analogy, it is similar to how students suddenly sit up straight the moment an exam proctor walks into the classroom. The test questions have not changed and their abilities have not improved, but their behavior clearly changes.
The Four Stages of the Hawthorne Studies
The research at the Hawthorne Works continued for about eight years, from 1924 to 1932. It began as a simple experiment to find out how the working environment affects productivity, but as the results came out differently than expected, it gradually broadened into a study of people and groups.
(1) The illumination experiments
Researchers observed productivity while changing the brightness of the workplace. Yet productivity rose not only in the group whose lighting was made brighter but also in the comparison group whose lighting was left unchanged, and productivity did not drop much even when the lighting was dimmed.
(2) The relay assembly experiments
A few female workers were gathered in a separate room, and their rest breaks, working hours, snacks, and so on were changed. Output generally increased each time the conditions were changed, and it stayed high even after the original conditions were restored.
(3) The interview program
The researchers interviewed more than 20,000 employees and listened to their feelings and complaints about their work. Simply listening to them was observed to improve the employees’ attitudes.
(4) The bank wiring observation experiment
Observing a group of male workers revealed that coworkers had created an informal norm of a “fair day’s output” and kept one another in check so as not to exceed it.
Elton Mayo and Fritz Roethlisberger of Harvard University took part in the research, and its findings were compiled in the 1939 book Management and the Worker.
The Debate over the Hawthorne Effect
The Hawthorne studies changed the course of management studies. Until then, the mainstream had been Taylor’s scientific management, which raised efficiency by breaking work into small tasks and timing them; afterward, the “human relations approach,” which holds that people’s feelings, relationships with coworkers, and sense of belonging determine performance, gained ground.
However, there are also many objections to taking the Hawthorne effect at face value. Critics have pointed out that in the relay assembly experiments some workers were replaced partway through, and that the research period overlapped with the Great Depression, when the pressure to keep one’s job was intense. In 2011, the economists Steven Levitt and John List reanalyzed the surviving data from the illumination experiments and reported that the effect was not as clear as commonly believed.
Even so, the idea itself that “the fact of being observed can change behavior” remains an important caveat that is consistently taken into account in medical, educational, and social science research.
[Key Points from the Examples]
- Pilot programs: early results of a new system may be an effect of attention
- Site inspections: rule compliance rises only on inspection days
- Clinical research: observed participants’ lifestyle habits improve on their own
- Customer surveys: responses become more favorable simply because people are being surveyed
Four Perspectives for Applying It in the Workplace
The Hawthorne effect gives managers two messages. One is that attention and communication really do move people; the other is that the numbers in front of you may be an illusion.
(1) Set up a comparison group
When testing a new system, you can isolate its true effect only by comparing it with a group to which the system was not applied.
(2) Watch for long enough
Do not look only at the results right after introduction; check whether the effect holds even after the attention has faded.
(3) Turn attention into a system
Make the attention you give employees, such as regular one-on-ones and feedback, a steady habit rather than a one-off event.
(4) Distinguish surveillance from attention
Excessive surveillance breeds anxiety and resistance. Positive change lasts when the attention is respectful of people.
In the end, what produces results may not be the light switch but the minds of the people doing the work. At the same time, it takes a cool head not to mistake the temporary changes those minds produce for the power of the system.
Reading the human reactions hidden behind the numbers as well is the first step toward truly understanding an organization.
