Hawthorne Effect

The Hawthorne effect is when research participants act in a way that is consistent with their perception of the researcher’s expectations during a study, which then biases the outcomes of that research study. For example, imagine that a researcher was conducting a study about one type of helping behavior—door-opening behavior. If participants for some reason know that they were being studied and also know that the purpose of the study is about helping, they may be more likely to help by opening doors for others because that is what they think the researcher expects (regardless of the actual purpose, hypotheses, or methods of the study) rather than walking through the door and paying little attention to whether they should hold it for the next person. This entry begins by providing a brief historical account of the original Hawthorne studies and the importance of their findings and then offers a summary of six ways to minimize the Hawthorne effect in research. The name for the Hawthorne effect comes from a series of classic research studies conducted in the 1920s and 1930s, which are collectively known as the Hawthorne studies. These studies began as an examination of the impact of the quality and amount of lighting on worker efficiency in the Hawthorne plant of Western Electric Company. The first of the studies controlled the level of the lighting and measured factory worker productivity. At points, they increased the level of the lighting, decreased it, or kept it the same. They expected that increased lighting would improve productivity on the factory line, but instead found that factory line productivity increased regardless of the level of illumination in the plant.

Because of these unexpected findings, they continued to study the employees in the plant by manipulating other human factors, such as temperature, humidity, work hours, incentives, rest, and fatigue. The researchers were surprised to find the results showed an increase in productivity regardless of the particular variable being manipulated. As a result, the research team set up a controlled experiment in a relay test room and then interviewed over 21,000 employees.

These original Hawthorne studies provided two key findings that are still relevant today. The first, though not the most pertinent for this summary, is part of the historical foundation of the field of industrial and organizational psychology. The Hawthorne studies demonstrated the importance of the informal influence networks and social factors have on employee behavior in organizations. Prior to this, many considered the formal leadership structure to be the most important influence on employee behavior. The second key finding, and the more important one for this summary, is that the Hawthorne studies demonstrated the importance of participant expectations, or demand characteristics, on participant behavior. Specifically, the studies revealed that a participant will react to things other than just the variable manipulated by a researcher. It is clear from this series of studies that workers in the Hawthorne studies acted in a way that was [Page 768]inconsistent with the predictions and instead likely consistent with what they thought the researchers wanted.

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