The Hawthorne Effect and You

The Hawthorne Effect is a form of reac­tiv­ity whereby sub­jects improve an aspect of their behav­ior being exper­i­men­tally mea­sured sim­ply in response to the fact that they are being studied.

The term was coined in 1955 by Henry A. Lands­berger when ana­lyz­ing older exper­i­ments from 1924–1932 at the Hawthorne Works (a West­ern Elec­tric man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­ity out­side Chicago). Hawthorne Works had com­mis­sioned a study to see if its work­ers would become more pro­duc­tive in higher or lower lev­els of light. The work­ers’ pro­duc­tiv­ity seemed to improve when changes were made and slumped when the study was con­cluded. It was sug­gested that the pro­duc­tiv­ity gain was due to the moti­va­tional effect of the inter­est being shown in them.

From the The Sim­ple Dol­lar:

We all do it. When we know we’re being watched, we’re on our best behav­ior. We often tend to per­form bet­ter and we usu­ally tend to make bet­ter choices, too. Then, when we think the focus is off of us, we relax and some­times make dif­fer­ent choices.

This effect, in which we act “bet­ter” when we believe we’re being observed by oth­ers, is called the Hawthorne effect, and it’s sur­pris­ingly powerful.

It’s easy to see exam­ples of this almost every day in our lives. If we’re out with peo­ple we don’t know well and are try­ing to impress, we’re going to focus intensely on putting our best foot for­ward. We’ll dress well, attempt to be good con­ver­sa­tion­al­ists, and try hard to put pos­i­tive char­ac­ter traits on dis­play. On the other hand, when we’re home alone watch­ing tele­vi­sion, we’ll often put on old raggy com­fort­able clothes and curl up on the couch with­out comb­ing our hair or any­thing like that.

Let’s carry that for­ward a bit. Let’s say we’re at a store with a friend and that friend is watch­ing us as we make up our mind about whether or not to make a pur­chase. Sim­ply by observ­ing, that friend has an effect on whether we buy.

I see it even in my own life. If my finan­cially con­ser­v­a­tive friend John is watch­ing, I’ll tend to not buy the item and walk away. On the other hand, if one of my other heavy-spending friends is watch­ing, I’ll lean more towards buy­ing the item. The observer doesn’t have to actively par­tic­i­pate at all in my pur­chase – sim­ply by being there, they impact my choice.

In short, I tend to lean towards a “best behav­ior” in the eyes of who­ever is observ­ing me. That “best behav­ior,” though, changes based on who is doing the observing.

Some of you may scoff at this at first glance, but imag­ine your­self in sit­u­a­tions in your life and how your actions and choices in those sit­u­a­tions change depend­ing on who is there and who isn’t.

For me, the intrigu­ing part of the Hawthorne effect is how it can rein­force pos­i­tive behav­iors in your life. Just choose to sur­round your­self with peo­ple who rein­force the behav­iors you want to exhibit.

So, for exam­ple, if I’m going to go do some com­par­i­son shop­ping for Christ­mas gifts with a friend, I’m far bet­ter off choos­ing to go with John than with other peo­ple. Why? John’s mere pres­ence encour­ages me to dig for val­ues in the gifts that I buy and not just go for the splashy gift, while oth­ers, by their mere pres­ence, will encour­age me to just go for the “awe­some” gift with­out strong plan­ning or thought.

If I’m try­ing to break a habit of drink­ing socially, I’m bet­ter off spend­ing social time with friends that don’t drink. Again, just by their pow­ers of obser­va­tion, I’m more likely to make the appro­pri­ate choice. Of course, the reverse is true – if I enjoy drink­ing socially, I should choosse friends who also enjoy it.

If I want to go the extra mile at work and look like a win­ner, I should try to get into group projects with peo­ple who are really pro­duc­tive – the “stars” of the com­pany – instead of peo­ple who just sit around and com­plain. On the other hand, if I’m just inter­ested in pass­ing the time at work, I should seek out those who are doing the bare minimum.

What kind of per­son do you want to be? It’s much eas­ier to find the path to where you want to go if the peo­ple around you are on that same path. Just by their pres­ence, you’ll innately want to please them with your actions, so you’ll make choices with them that lead you towards your own per­sonal goals.

The Hawthorne effect really works. More and more, I grav­i­tate towards friends and work asso­ciates that are the kind of peo­ple that I want to be.