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Hawthorne Effect (Psychology)
Similar to the placebo effect in medicine, this effect occurs when people change their behavior simply as a result of being a participant in a research study or because they know that they are being observed. The behavioral change is usually in a socially acceptable direction. The Hawthorne effect was originally discovered in the 1920s by a group of Harvard psychologists who were conducting a study at the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Company, with the study designed to assess whether varying levels of lighting had an effect on worker productivity. Investigators found that productivity increased for all groups, including the control group, regardless of the level of lighting. Several subsequent studies were conducted examining the Hawthorne effect in various other work settings. The ...