Hawthorne Effect & Placebos

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Outline on the Hawthorne Effect & Placebos

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See Also: Examples of Social Science Research

See Also: The Hawthorne Studies

Summary: The Hawthorne Studies began in 1924 at the Hawthorne Works of the West Electric Co. near Cicero, IL, & were conducted under auspices the National Research Council. The Objectives were to examine the effect of illumination on output. After 2.5 yrs. & many experiments, researchers could see no effect because output in both control & experimental groups had increased because the effect of being studied impacted the research subjects

Reactivity is the tendency of people being studied by social scientists to react to the researcher or to the fact that they are being studied

The Hawthorne Effect (HE) is a form of reactivity

The concept of the HE, which was developed during the Hawthorne Studies, holds that added social attention to workers will increase their productivity

People in some parts of the Hawthorne Studies found that the people being studied attempt to please the researcher

The Placebo Effect (PE) is a form of reactivity whereby people react as a result of being studied when in fact nothing has changed

A Placebo is a false or phony treatment designed to differentiate btwn changes due to real treatment & "imagined" treatment

A Placebo is a thing or treatment given by researchers that can provide remedy because subjects believe that their condition is being treated

The PE is widely known in medical studies because even groups who receive sugar pills instead of medicine often show improvement

The HE & the PE are very similar except the HE is often, at some level, consciously chosen whereas the PE is never consciously chosen

During the Hawthorne Studies the HE was serendipitously discovers through dogged research

The Hawthorne Studies lasted several years & applied different treatments in different settings

One of the dynamics of the study was that the Motor Wiring Room was mostly staffed by young women while the researchers were all young "college men"

The focus of the study was an examination of the effect of illumination on the workplace; i.e., what was the optimal level of lighting for factory work

The findings of the Hawthorne Studies were found serendipitously through the FOUR phases of the study over several years

During Phase 1, the researchers noted some inconsistent data

During Phase 2, the researchers found that productivity increase irregardless of whether illumination was increased or decreased

The Observers, college males in lab coats, observed isolated small groups of workers, who were mostly young women

The women were told to ignore the researchers & work at their regular pace

The women & the men interacted

The researchers wondered if other factors were intervening so they introduced hot lunches, rest periods, days off, Saturdays wk, longer hrs., shorter hrs., high fatigue, etc.

Output rose & stayed high!

There was no easily identified relationship btwn productivity & changes in the work environment

The impact on productivity seemed to lie more w/ social factors than w/ anything else

It was through intensive interviews that Roethlisberger discovered that the women were deliberately increasing productivity because of the intense observation, & the nature of the observers, that they were experiencing

The Hawthorne Studies revealed that the workers were reacting to being observed & that at some level, this reaction was conscious or deliberate

In the later Phases of the Hawthorne Studies, it was found that workers develop norms & organizational culture which impact, among other things, work-pace