let me ask you a question let's say you're working in a factory do you think that increased light throughout the factory would make you more productive maybe what about decreased light throughout the factory do you think you would be more productive working more hours in a day or do you think you'd be more productive working less hours what about longer breaks or shorter breaks how do you think this would affect how efficient you are these are some of the questions that researchers asked themselves in the 1920s they conducted a study to see whether or not workers in an electric factory would be more productive under certain conditions and the answers were surprising no matter how they altered the conditions of the workplace the workers were always more productive this phenomenon became known as the hawthorne effect named after the hawthorne works electric factory where the studies were conducted this video is all about the hawthorne effect the history of this phenomenon and examples of this effect in everyday life including how you can use it to increase your personal efficiency so first off what is this hawthorne effect well the hawthorne effect also known as the observer expectancy effect is the idea that people change or modify their behaviors whenever they know they're being observed observation may be a variable of its own that researchers have to account for when setting up or conducting a study this becomes a problem when running experiments because sometimes it's difficult to administer a test without having the participants feel like they're being watched and the hawthorne effect doesn't just affect participants researchers theorize that the researchers themselves may skew the results or interpret it incorrectly due to the hawthorne effect so why does this happen well the answers may be based on the context of the study take productivity studies for example during the hawthorne studies it is possible that the workers received feedback on their productivity as part of this study that extra observation and feedback could play into increased productivity for example i definitely know that i work much harder whenever i know i'm being observed another reason is the demand effect the participants may have wanted to please the experimenters by giving them the results that they wanted to see this means working harder even when variables like working hours or the lighting has changed in ways that may contradict the original hypothesis yet another explanation may lie in the participants explanation for the study in the first place throughout the hawthorne studies participants started to grow wary of the researchers motives they worried that the study may result in layoffs and these fears could have serious effects on motivation one last cause of the hawthorne effect involves a study that involves humans and a horse if the experiments or observers are aware of the desired effect of the study they might unintentionally skew the results so in the early 1900s william von holsten claimed that his horse clever hans could answer arithmetic questions a german psychologist was blown away by this and went to study the horse and see if the owner was actually a fraud and while fraud was not involved the psychologist observed something interesting if the owner was present or if the owner knew the answers to the arithmetic questions the horse was able to answer correctly 89 of the time however if the owner was not present or he didn't know the answer the horse only answered correctly six percent of the time further studies kind of a strange situation and further studies on the clever hans effect show that drug sniffing dogs and humans are likely to produce a certain result if the experimenters the owners or the observers in the room know that the result is desired there have been many replication studies aimed at proving or disproving the presence of this hawthorne effect and not all of them have confirmed the existence of the hawthorne effect especially to the degree that was described in the original hawthorne studies but some studies do give quite a bit of validity to the hawthorne effect and how it may change the results of different research studies for example number one is a study from the american college of rheumatology that showed that the hawthorne effect may have played a role in the results of the study on rheumatoid arthritis researchers measured the subject's conditions before during and after the trial and no matter what variables were brought into the study the conditions of the patients improved once the study was over the conditions worsened now this goes to show that while the hawthorne effect has been a part of productivity and human behavior studies it can also affect the results of studies in the medical world example number two is cerebral palsy patients so contradicting data can actually show the hawthorne effect in action in the 1970s a study aimed to see whether or not a treatment would reduce motor dysfunction in patients with cerebral palsy the researchers recorded testimony from the patients about the result of the treatment and quantitative data based on different tests they gave them as it turned out the qualitative and quantitative data contradicted each other the patient said that the treatment worked for them but the results showed otherwise now this could support the idea that motives the demand effect and something called the compliance bias could all play into the results of a study lastly we have the example of clinical trials so when subjects are recruited for a clinical trial they may be forbidden from leaving the hospital or research facility wherever that test is being taken place at and some researchers believe that not only does the hawthorne effect take place here but also an effect called trial effect in addition to the modifications and behavior caused by observers subjects may also be affected by the level of care in the facility in addition they may be more likely to comply with the researchers and the compliance could then affect results for example if you're testing whether orange juice lowers cortisol levels it might just be the luxurious clinical resort that you're at and not the orange juice if you think of it like a vacation so in order to further study human behavior researchers often need human experiments now the hawthorne effect is a reminder that humans are very complicated to work with and measure how can researchers prevent subjects from giving the answers that researchers might want them to hear or how do they set up a study to best reflect a normal environment including living or working conditions and how can all of this be done ethically these are some important questions and right now the answer isn't really definite but the more that you study psychology and understand setting up studies the easier it will be to question results and search for the truth thank you guys so much for watching this video and i hope you learned a little bit more about the hawthorne effect if you have any questions at all feel completely free to leave a comment below or watch the rest of my social psychology videos in the series until next time you