Skip to main content

Hawthorne Experiment (Mayo Experiment)

The Hawthorne effect refers to the fact that people will modify their behavior simply because they are being observed. The effect gets its name form one of the most famous industrial history experiments that took place at western Electric's factory in the Hawthorne suburb of Chicago in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

However, subsequent analysis of the effect by the university of Chicago economists in 2009 revealed that the original results were likely overstated.

These experiments were originally designed to study the " Relation of quality and quantity of illumination to efficiency in industry". The surprising thing observed that the output has no relation with the level of illumination. The observer then realized that motivation of the individual has no relation with money or lighting intensity. They started to ask that what motivates an individual to work in groups. 

The psychologist named Elton Mayo was allowed to conduct series of experiments and important findings were;

  • Working in a small, harmonious group can have a significant effect on productivity.
  • Having a chance to air grievances seems to be beneficial to working relationship.
One of the essential principle observed was that when you show concern or pay attention to, there will be considerable betterment in performance. This is known as 'Hawthorne effect' or the 'somebody upstairs cares' syndrome.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • The Hawthorne Effect is when subjects of an experimental study attempt to change or improve their behavior simply because it is being evaluated or studies.
  • The term was coined during experiments that took place at Western Electric's Factory in the Hawthorne suburb of Chicago in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
  • The Hawthorne Effect is thought to be unavoidable in studies and experiments that use humans as subjects. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Accident / Incident Ratio Studies (F.E Bird Triangle)

The accident triangle, also known as Heinrich's triangle or Bird's triangle, is a theory of industrial accident prevention. It shows a relationship between serious accidents, minor accidents and near misses and proposes that if the number of minor accidents is reduced then there will be a corresponding fall in the number of serious accidents The triangle was first proposed by Herbert William Heinrich in 1931 and has since been updated and expanded upon by other writers, notable Franck E. Bird. It is often shown pictorially as a triangle or pyramid and has been described as a cornerstone of 20th century workplace health and safety philosophy. In recent times, it has come under criticism over the values allocated to each category of accident and for focusing only on the reduction in minor injuries. There is no shortage of data on incidents such as accidents or near misses. Some researchers have studied the figures in details and concluded that there appears to be a relationship b...
Post a Comment
Read more

World Safety Day - 28 April

History of 28 - April;   The annual World Day for Safety and Health at Work on 28 April promotes the prevention of occupational accidents and diseases globally. It is an awareness-raising campaign intended to focus international attention on the magnitude of the problem and on how promoting and creating a safety and health culture can help reduce the number of work-related deaths and injuries. The ILO celebrates the World Day for Safety and Health at Work on the 28 April to promote the prevention of occupational accidents and diseases globally. It is an awareness-raising campaign intended to focus international attention on emerging trends in the field of occupational safety and health and on the magnitude of work-related injuries, diseases and fatalities worldwide. With the celebration of the World Day for Safety and Health at Work, the ILO promotes the creation of a global preventative safety and health culture involving ILO constituents and all key stakeholders in this field...
Post a Comment
Read more

EVENT TREE ANALYSIS (ETA)

Event tree analysis ( ETA ) is a forward, top-down, logical modeling technique for both success and failure that explores responses through a single initiating event and lays a path for assessing probabilities of the outcomes and overall system analysis. This analysis technique is used to analyze the effects of functioning or failed systems given that an event has occurred.   ETA is a powerful tool that will identify all consequences of a system that have a probability of occurring after an initiating event that can be applied to a wide range of systems including: nuclear power plants, spacecraft,  and chemical plants. This technique may be applied to a system early in the design process to identify potential issues that may arise, rather than correcting the issues after they occur. With this forward logic process, use of ETA as a tool in risk assessment can help to prevent negative outcomes from occurring, by providing a risk assessor with the probability of occurrence...
Post a Comment
Read more