Hawthorne effect

American  

noun

Psychology.

1. a positive change in the performance of a group of persons taking part in an experiment or study due to their perception of being singled out for special consideration.

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Hawthorne effect British  

/ ˈhɔːˌθɔːn /

noun

1. improvement in the performance of employees, students, etc, brought about by making changes in working methods, resulting from research into means of improving performance Compare iatrogenic placebo effect

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Etymology

Origin of Hawthorne effect

First recorded in 1960–65; after the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Company, Cicero, Ill., where such an effect was observed in experiments

Example Sentences

“This creates a major bias in the monitoring and compliance and could potentially skew the results in favor of the high-intensity training group,” she said in an email, pointing to the Hawthorne effect, a phenomenon in which people alter their behavior because they know they’re being watched.

From Los Angeles Times

And while this could be understood as a sort of Hawthorne effect particular to this experiment as a whole, it is hardly unique.

From Washington Post

Even for the most well-meaning researcher, accurate measurement of changes to symptoms can be a challenge for a number of reasons, one of which is a phenomenon known as the Hawthorne effect.

From Salon

Sociologist Henry Landsberger described the tendency of subjects to behave differently when they know they are being observed as the Hawthorne Effect after the Chicago telephone works where efficiency experts tried to study worker productivity under different circumstances but got no useful results because workers’ awareness that they were being watched so dramatically changed their behaviors.

From Fox News

Researchers say the positive results were a sign of the Hawthorne effect, a term for behavioral change as the result of being observed.

From Scientific American