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. ...