hawthorne-effect

What Is The Hawthorne Effect? The Hawthorne Effect In A Nutshell

Business / By / January 9, 2023

The Hawthorne Effect refers to an inclination of some people to work harder or perform better when they know they are being observed. The effect is most associated with those who are experiment participants, who alter their behavior due to the attention they are receiving and not due to any manipulation of independent variables. Therefore, the Hawthorne Effect describes the tendency for a person to change their behavior with the awareness that they are being observed.

Understanding the Hawthorne Effect

The Hawthorne Effect has also been discussed in the context of industrial and organizational psychology. Researcher Henry A.

Landsberger, who first described the effect, conducted landmark studies in the 1920s and 30s after being commissioned by an electric company to determine if there was a relationship between productivity and work environment.

During the studies, Landsberger examined aspects such as the timing of breaks, workplace lighting, and workday length.

In one particular study into the effect of decreasing light levels on worker productivity, Landsberger found that employees worked harder in response to the changes but then decreased their output once the test concluded. 

It was later found that any change to the workplace caused an increase in productivity.

Many of these changes might appear to lower productivity at first glance, such as longer workdays or the elimination of work breaks.

The researchers concluded that employees responded to increased attention from supervisors and not from experimental variables.

Subsequent research into the Hawthorne Effect

Subsequent research into the Hawthorne Effect suggested that Landsberger’s original results were somewhat overstated.

In 2009, a University of Chicago study went over the data and discovered that other factors played a role in employee productivity.

The study also found that many of Landsberger’s conclusions were simply not supported by the data.

Nevertheless, the study did concede that the Hawthorn Effect was a real – if not weak – phenomenon.

Five years later, a systematic review published in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology found the phenomena to exist across 19 different experiments.

The review also acknowledged that more research needed to be done to determine the mechanism(s) behind the Hawthorn Effect.

With that said, some factors which may influence productivity include:

Demand characteristics

Where study participants match their behavior to subtle clues a researcher may exhibit regarding the experiment hypothesis. 

Novelty effects

Sometimes, performance increases because of the novelty associated with being monitored. 

Performance feedback

In the original study, increased attention from researchers was thought to have increased performance feedback.

This in turn resulted in productivity improvements.

The Hawthorne Effect in business

Here are some scenarios where the Hawthorne Effect may occur in business:

Management technique

Observation of employees is a double-edged sword.

Employees who know they are being observed may improve their performance because of increased accountability.

On the other hand, performance may decline if the employee perceives there to be an ulterior motive for the superior observing them.

Education

The Hawthorne effect has been proven to have very little impact on school-age children, but teachers observed by a camera or a person sitting in on their class tended to perform better. 

Start-up growth

The Hawthorn Effect can also be used in new companies to encourage innovative ideas and collaboration.

Employee observation means opinions are heard and respected, which in turn invokes certain emotions that motivate the employee to strive for a common purpose.

Attentive observation can also be used to monitor employees as they collaborate in teams, with more productive team members tending to assume leadership of the group and deliver better outcomes.

Hawthorne Effect and Pygmalion Effect

pygmalion-effect
The Pygmalion effect is a psychological phenomenon where higher expectations lead to an increase in performance. The Pygmalion effect was defined by psychologist Robert Rosenthal, who described it as “the phenomenon whereby one person’s expectation for another person’s behavior comes to serve as a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Like the Hawthorne Effect, the Pygmalion effect is a psychological phenomenon where the person influenced can lead to a change in performance.

If leveraged adequately within organizations, this can lead to increased performance.

Key takeaways

  • The Hawthorne Effect describes the tendency for a person to change their behavior due to an awareness of being observed. The phenomenon was first described by Henry A. Landsberger in a series of experiments in the 1920s and 30s.
  • Subsequent research into the Hawthorne Effect suggested that Landsberger’s original results were exaggerated. Indeed, the phenomenon may be supplemented by demand characteristics, novelty effects, and performance feedback.
  • The Hawthorne Effect commonly occurs during employee-manager interactions. It may also increase teacher performance in the classroom and enhance ideation, leadership, and collaboration in young companies.

Connected Thinking Frameworks

Convergent vs. Divergent Thinking

convergent-vs-divergent-thinking
Convergent thinking occurs when the solution to a problem can be found by applying established rules and logical reasoning. Whereas divergent thinking is an unstructured problem-solving method where participants are encouraged to develop many innovative ideas or solutions to a given problem. Where convergent thinking might work for larger, mature organizations where divergent thinking is more suited for startups and innovative companies.

Critical Thinking

critical-thinking
Critical thinking involves analyzing observations, facts, evidence, and arguments to form a judgment about what someone reads, hears, says, or writes.

Systems Thinking

systems-thinking
Systems thinking is a holistic means of investigating the factors and interactions that could contribute to a potential outcome. It is about thinking non-linearly, and understanding the second-order consequences of actions and input into the system.

Vertical Thinking

vertical-thinking
Vertical thinking, on the other hand, is a problem-solving approach that favors a selective, analytical, structured, and sequential mindset. The focus of vertical thinking is to arrive at a reasoned, defined solution.

Maslow’s Hammer

einstellung-effect
Maslow’s Hammer, otherwise known as the law of the instrument or the Einstellung effect, is a cognitive bias causing an over-reliance on a familiar tool. This can be expressed as the tendency to overuse a known tool (perhaps a hammer) to solve issues that might require a different tool. This problem is persistent in the business world where perhaps known tools or frameworks might be used in the wrong context (like business plans used as planning tools instead of only investors’ pitches).

Peter Principle

peter-principle
The Peter Principle was first described by Canadian sociologist Lawrence J. Peter in his 1969 book The Peter Principle. The Peter Principle states that people are continually promoted within an organization until they reach their level of incompetence.

Straw Man Fallacy

straw-man-fallacy
The straw man fallacy describes an argument that misrepresents an opponent’s stance to make rebuttal more convenient. The straw man fallacy is a type of informal logical fallacy, defined as a flaw in the structure of an argument that renders it invalid.

Streisand Effect

streisand-effect
The Streisand Effect is a paradoxical phenomenon where the act of suppressing information to reduce visibility causes it to become more visible. In 2003, Streisand attempted to suppress aerial photographs of her Californian home by suing photographer Kenneth Adelman for an invasion of privacy. Adelman, who Streisand assumed was paparazzi, was instead taking photographs to document and study coastal erosion. In her quest for more privacy, Streisand’s efforts had the opposite effect.

Heuristic

heuristic
As highlighted by German psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer in the paper “Heuristic Decision Making,” the term heuristic is of Greek origin, meaning “serving to find out or discover.” More precisely, a heuristic is a fast and accurate way to make decisions in the real world, which is driven by uncertainty.

Recognition Heuristic

recognition-heuristic
The recognition heuristic is a psychological model of judgment and decision making. It is part of a suite of simple and economical heuristics proposed by psychologists Daniel Goldstein and Gerd Gigerenzer. The recognition heuristic argues that inferences are made about an object based on whether it is recognized or not.

Representativeness Heuristic

representativeness-heuristic
The representativeness heuristic was first described by psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. The representativeness heuristic judges the probability of an event according to the degree to which that event resembles a broader class. When queried, most will choose the first option because the description of John matches the stereotype we may hold for an archaeologist.

Take-The-Best Heuristic

take-the-best-heuristic
The take-the-best heuristic is a decision-making shortcut that helps an individual choose between several alternatives. The take-the-best (TTB) heuristic decides between two or more alternatives based on a single good attribute, otherwise known as a cue. In the process, less desirable attributes are ignored.

Biases

biases
The concept of cognitive biases was introduced and popularized by the work of Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman in 1972. Biases are seen as systematic errors and flaws that make humans deviate from the standards of rationality, thus making us inept at making good decisions under uncertainty.

Bundling Bias

bundling-bias
The bundling bias is a cognitive bias in e-commerce where a consumer tends not to use all of the products bought as a group, or bundle. Bundling occurs when individual products or services are sold together as a bundle. Common examples are tickets and experiences. The bundling bias dictates that consumers are less likely to use each item in the bundle. This means that the value of the bundle and indeed the value of each item in the bundle is decreased.

Barnum Effect

barnum-effect
The Barnum Effect is a cognitive bias where individuals believe that generic information – which applies to most people – is specifically tailored for themselves.

First-Principles Thinking

first-principles-thinking
First-principles thinking – sometimes called reasoning from first principles – is used to reverse-engineer complex problems and encourage creativity. It involves breaking down problems into basic elements and reassembling them from the ground up. Elon Musk is among the strongest proponents of this way of thinking.

Ladder Of Inference

ladder-of-inference
The ladder of inference is a conscious or subconscious thinking process where an individual moves from a fact to a decision or action. The ladder of inference was created by academic Chris Argyris to illustrate how people form and then use mental models to make decisions.

Six Thinking Hats Model

six-thinking-hats-model
The Six Thinking Hats model was created by psychologist Edward de Bono in 1986, who noted that personality type was a key driver of how people approached problem-solving. For example, optimists view situations differently from pessimists. Analytical individuals may generate ideas that a more emotional person would not, and vice versa.

Second-Order Thinking

second-order-thinking
Second-order thinking is a means of assessing the implications of our decisions by considering future consequences. Second-order thinking is a mental model that considers all future possibilities. It encourages individuals to think outside of the box so that they can prepare for every and eventuality. It also discourages the tendency for individuals to default to the most obvious choice.

Lateral Thinking

lateral-thinking
Lateral thinking is a business strategy that involves approaching a problem from a different direction. The strategy attempts to remove traditionally formulaic and routine approaches to problem-solving by advocating creative thinking, therefore finding unconventional ways to solve a known problem. This sort of non-linear approach to problem-solving, can at times, create a big impact.

Bounded Rationality

bounded-rationality
Bounded rationality is a concept attributed to Herbert Simon, an economist and political scientist interested in decision-making and how we make decisions in the real world. In fact, he believed that rather than optimizing (which was the mainstream view in the past decades) humans follow what he called satisficing.

Dunning-Kruger Effect

dunning-kruger-effect
The Dunning-Kruger effect describes a cognitive bias where people with low ability in a task overestimate their ability to perform that task well. Consumers or businesses that do not possess the requisite knowledge make bad decisions. What’s more, knowledge gaps prevent the person or business from seeing their mistakes.

Occam’s Razor

occams-razor
Occam’s Razor states that one should not increase (beyond reason) the number of entities required to explain anything. All things being equal, the simplest solution is often the best one. The principle is attributed to 14th-century English theologian William of Ockham.

Mandela Effect

mandela-effect
The Mandela effect is a phenomenon where a large group of people remembers an event differently from how it occurred. The Mandela effect was first described in relation to Fiona Broome, who believed that former South African President Nelson Mandela died in prison during the 1980s. While Mandela was released from prison in 1990 and died 23 years later, Broome remembered news coverage of his death in prison and even a speech from his widow. Of course, neither event occurred in reality. But Broome was later to discover that she was not the only one with the same recollection of events.

Crowding-Out Effect

crowding-out-effect
The crowding-out effect occurs when public sector spending reduces spending in the private sector.

Bandwagon Effect

bandwagon-effect
The bandwagon effect tells us that the more a belief or idea has been adopted by more people within a group, the more the individual adoption of that idea might increase within the same group. This is the psychological effect that leads to herd mentality. What in marketing can be associated with social proof.

Read Next: Biases, Bounded Rationality, Mandela Effect, Dunning-Kruger Effect, Lindy Effect, Crowding Out Effect, Bandwagon Effect.

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About The Author

Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
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