Hawthorne experiments

The Hawthorne experiments, conducted from 1924 to 1932, were designed to assess whether improvements in physical working conditions would increase employee productivity. Scientist Elton Mayo and his colleagues manipulated multiple aspects of the work environment for a selected group of workers at the Hawthorne Plant of the Western Electric Company and subsequently measured their productivity. Six women who regularly assembled telecommunications relays from a number of small electronic parts were selected from the general population of workers at the plant. They began working in a special testing room where factors such as the level of lighting, workday length, and the number and duration of rest periods were each changed. Productivity then was measured in terms of the number of relays each woman assembled. Results indicated that brighter light, shorter hours, and the addition of two rest periods during the day all increased productivity, theoretically by helping workers see and by preventing fatigue. But much to the researchers’ surprise, productivity did not revert to lower levels when these changes were reversed. Rather, it climbed to an even higher level. These unexpected results initially led Mayo and his colleagues to conclude that the workers became more productive simply because they were under observation. However, subsequent analyses of the testing situation revealed that several important social factors also differed markedly from the workers’ previous environment, contributing to higher productivity. For example, the testing-room supervisor behaved in a friendlier fashion than did other company supervisors, and the testing personnel solicited participants’ opinions about the upcoming changes as opposed to simply forcing new changes upon them. Presumably these positive social conditions increased participants’ self-esteem and made them feel like an important part of a team, unlike ASSEMBLY LINE workers. In essence, participating in the experiments led to more positive attitudes towards work in general and a higher level of commitment to working hard for the company. These factors, along with being under constant observation, help explain the high levels of productivity observed even after the changes were reversed. Today, individuals who modify their behavior when they are being observed or when participating in research are said to be using the Hawthorne effect. This falls under the broader category of SOCIAL FACILITATION, which describes any behavioral changes that are due to the presence of other people or an audience. The Hawthorne experiments were highly influential in expanding the scope of the field of INDUSTRIAL-ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. The experiments led industrial-organizational psychologists to consider for the first time how social factors such as quality of supervision, informal groups, and employee satisfaction affect people’s behavior in the business environment.