Hawthorne Effect
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The Hawthorne Effect is a well-documented phenomenon that affects many research experiments in social sciences.
It is the process where human subjects of an experiment change their behavior, simply because they are being studied. This is one of the hardest inbuilt biases to eliminate or factor into the design.
The History of the Hawthorne Effect
The name is not the surname of a researcher, but the name of a place where the effect was first encountered.
In 1955, the researcher, Henry A. Landsberger, performed a study and analysis of data from experiments performed between 1924 and 1932, by Elton Mayo, at the Hawthorne Works near Chicago. The company had commissioned studies to determine if the level of light within their building affected the productivity of the workers.
Mayo found that the level of light made no difference in the productivity, as the workers increased output whenever the amount of light was switched from a low level to a high level, or vice versa.
He noticed that this effect occurred when any variable was manipulated, and postulated that it happened because the workers automatically changed their behavior. They increased output, simply because they were aware that they were under observation.
The logical conclusion was that the workers felt important because they were pleased to be singled out, and increased productivity as a result. Being singled out was the factor dictating increased productivity, not the changing lighting levels, or any of the other factors that they experimented upon.
The Hawthorne Effect and Modern Day Research
Many types of research use human research subjects, and the Hawthorne effect is an unavoidable bias that the researcher must try to take into account when they analyze the results.
Subjects are always liable to modify behavior when they are aware that they are part of an experiment, and this is extremely difficult to quantify. All that a researcher can do is
The Hawthorne Effect is a well-documented phenomenon that affects many research experiments in social sciences.
It is the process where human subjects of an experiment change their behavior, simply because they are being studied. This is one of the hardest inbuilt biases to eliminate or factor into the design.
The History of the Hawthorne Effect
The name is not the surname of a researcher, but the name of a place where the effect was first encountered.
In 1955, the researcher, Henry A. Landsberger, performed a study and analysis of data from experiments performed between 1924 and 1932, by Elton Mayo, at the Hawthorne Works near Chicago. The company had commissioned studies to determine if the level of light within their building affected the productivity of the workers.
Mayo found that the level of light made no difference in the productivity, as the workers increased output whenever the amount of light was switched from a low level to a high level, or vice versa.
He noticed that this effect occurred when any variable was manipulated, and postulated that it happened because the workers automatically changed their behavior. They increased output, simply because they were aware that they were under observation.
The logical conclusion was that the workers felt important because they were pleased to be singled out, and increased productivity as a result. Being singled out was the factor dictating increased productivity, not the changing lighting levels, or any of the other factors that they experimented upon.
The Hawthorne Effect and Modern Day Research
Many types of research use human research subjects, and the Hawthorne effect is an unavoidable bias that the researcher must try to take into account when they analyze the results.
Subjects are always liable to modify behavior when they are aware that they are part of an experiment, and this is extremely difficult to quantify. All that a researcher can do is