The central idea behind the Hawthorne effect, a term used as early as 1950 by Elton Mayo and Fritz Roethlisberger, is that changes in participants' behavior during the course of a study may be "related only to the special social situation and social treatment they received." French applied the term in reference to a set of studies begun in 1924 at the former Hawthorne (Cicero, Illinois) Works of the Western Electric Company, the manufacturing arm of AT&T.
Read more about Hawthorne Effect: History, Interpretation and Criticism
Famous quotes containing the words hawthorne and/or effect:
“We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest.”
—Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864)
“Even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)