Re:Charles Lindbergh is the reason the U.S. doesn't have cam...
by tboughen on Saturday October 17, 2020 @02:10AM
(#24807796)
Last time I heard the Hawthorne effect discussed (on BBC radio 4), two psychologists explained that the lighting changes were enacted on a Monday, and lasted for the week. The increase in productivity detected on the Monday was then attributed to the change in lighting from the previous Friday.
Despite this seeming like a classic case of conflating correlation with causation, and the workers simply being more productive due to being more rested.
The psychologists then concluded that although this wasn’t evidence for the Hawthorne effect, the effect was still real. I turned off the radio.
Re:Charles Lindbergh is the reason the U.S. doesn't have cam...
by watwut on Saturday October 17, 2020 @02:31AM
(#24807866)
Personally, I act differently when stranger is in the room and when I an alone and when it is only me and friends. I personally observed family dinner being different when rare visitor came in, kids acting differently when they thought I an not watching and meetings being different when our off team people are present.
The citation doesn't seem to support much of anything:
> Descriptions of the well-known and remarkable effect, which was discovered in the context of research conducted at the Hawthorne Western Electric plant, turned out to be fictional.
> The original research involved workers who made electrical relays at the Hawthorne Works, a Western Electric plant in Cicero, Illinois. Between 1924 and 1927 the famous lighting study was conducted. Workers experienced a series of lighting changes in which productivity was said to increase with almost any change in the lighting. This turned out not to be true.
> Later interpretations such as Landsberger's suggested that the novelty of being research subjects and the increased attention from such could lead to temporary increases in workers' productivity. This interpretation was dubbed "the Hawthorne effect," although the data does not support that view.
> Other researchers have attempted to explain the effects with various interpretations. J. G. Adair warned of gross factual inaccuracy in most secondary publications on the Hawthorne effect and that many studies failed to find it.