The Hawthorne Effect: Why Being Watched Changes Everything
In 1924, engineers at the Hawthorne Works factory in Illinois had a simple question: “Does better lighting improve worker productivity?” They increased the lighting. Productivity went up. Success! Then they decreased the lighting. Productivity went up again. They tried different lighting levels—bright, dim, even back to the original. Productivity kept increasing. The lighting didn’t matter. What mattered was that workers knew they were being watched. This phenomenon—where people change their behavior simply because they’re being observed—became known as The Hawthorne Effect. ...