3 ms·
Really? You don't believe such an effect ever happens? It's one thing to say that particular results are not due to the effect, but the effect itself seems like
by tlb 17y ago
Really? You don't believe such an effect ever happens? It's one thing to say that particular results are not due to the effect, but the effect itself seems like a pretty likely source of error in any not-very-rigorous experiment.
- tokenadult 17y agoI spent most of my youth believing that there is a Hawthorne effect as described in the usual anecdote, but then on Usenet in the 1990s a psychologist referred me to a peer-reviewed article that actually went back to the data gathered by the original researchers. The article said that it is more likely that the change in worker performance was due to operant conditioning based on changed working conditions that were going on at the same time as the changes in factory lighting and so forth that the anecdote is about. Is there any replication http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html of a straight-up Hawthorne effect anywhere else in the peer-reviewed literature?
- tlb 17y agoOK, fair enough. It hasn't been convincingly demonstrated. But maybe you'll agree that it's still a good idea to watch out for the Hawthorne effect when doing human performance research, because it seems like a possible source of error. You wouldn't tell experimenters "there is no Hawthorne effect, so stop worrying about it."