What is the Hawthorne effect?

The Hawthorne effect is a phenomenon where individuals alter their performance or behavior because they know they are being observed and are receiving special attention from researchers. It represents a form of reactivity that can threaten the validity of a study. Researchers typically control for it by using blind experimental designs or unobtrusive research methods.

What we know

• The Hawthorne effect occurs when research study participants know they are being studied and alter their performance because of the attention they receive from experimenters. [2]
• Reactivity, including the Hawthorne effect, is a significant threat to a research study's external validity. [2]
• Blind experiment designs and unobtrusive research methods are commonly used solutions to control for reactivity in studies. [2]
• Case series studies are especially vulnerable to confounding issues like the Hawthorne effect due to a lack of a comparator group. [4]

Where to go next

• a case in pointWhat is the John Henry effect?
• how it workedHow do blind experiment designs control for bias?
• what followedWhy is reactivity a threat to external validity?
• compared withHow does observer bias differ from participant reactivity?
• the bigger pictureWhat is reactivity in psychological research?
• an unexpected connectionHow do educational rankings cause institutional reactivity?Researchers have applied the lens of psychological reactivity to institutional rankings, showing how public performance metrics alter the behavior of entire educational organizations.

Sources

• [1]Reactivity (Wikidata Q18574) · CC0 1.0
• [2]Reactivity (psychology) · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [3]Observer bias · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [4]Case series · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [5]Inherent bias · CC BY-SA 4.0