Mr. Will cited the Hawthorne Effect as evidence for his opinion. He defined the Hawthorne Effect as improved performance caused by the mere fact of change.
Experiments held 60 years ago at the Hawthorne plant of Western Electric near Chicago. Efficiency experts studied 13 women assembling telephones. Many variables were controlled--light and temperature in the workroom, the rest and nutrition of the assemblers. Productivity rose with every change. At last the experimenters concluded that the experiment itself--the interest shown in the workers--worked. [This may be a direct quote from an article by George Will, or my paraphrase...]Then my old notes conclude: Americans, being optimists, associate change with improvement. Change makes them cheerful, and more productive: Hopeful people work better, invest more, stay in school, have babies.
But Mr. Will may have misunderstood or mischaracterized the Hawthorne Effect. More definitions:
It has been described as the rewards you reap when you pay attention to people. The mere act of showing people that you're concerned about them usually spurs them to better job performance.--Source.
An experimental effect in the direction expected but not for the reason expected; i.e. a significant positive effect that turns out to have no causal basis in the theoretical motivation for the intervention, but is apparently due to the effect on the participants of knowing themselves to be studied in connection with the outcomes measured.--Source.
-
The Hawthorne Effect appears when we measure employee attitudes or behavior -- when people know they're being measured, they modify their behavior.--Source.
Initial improvement in a process of production caused by the obtrusive observation of that process. The effect was first noticed in the Hawthorne plant of Western Electric. Production increased not as a consequence of actual changes in working conditions introduced by the plant's management but because management demonstrated interest in such improvements (see self-fulfilling hypothesis).--Source.
And a debunking of the Hawthorne Effect: Like other hallowed but unproven concepts in psychology, the so-called Hawthorne effect has a life of its own.
Proponents of the Hawthorne effect say that people who are singled out for a study of any kind may improve their performance or behavior not because of any specific condition being tested, but simply because of all the attention they receive.
Those who mention the effect usually want to cast doubt on whether a given social innovation, instructional method, or therapy is really responsible for the change in behavior.
[snip]
Like a number of other once widely held but faulty theories in psychology, such as the belief in a racial basis for intelligence, the Hawthorne effect has a life of its own that seems to defy attempts to correct the record. The story of this myth's growth and its recent debunking contains a moral of caution for behavioral researchers and those who uncritically accept their pronouncements.
Here is a good debunking of the Hawthorne Effect: Scientific Myths That Are Too Good to Die By Gina Kolata, New York Times, December 6, 1998:
Scientists may be no different from lay people when it comes a message that strikes a chord in them. The Hawthorne effect had an enormous appeal for many social psychologists, [Stanford University psychology professor Dr. Lee] Ross said.
"The study became a symbol initially for arguing that change itself is good or that anything you do produces positive effects," he said. Then it was interpreted to mean that people who take part in experiments behave differently simply because they are taking part in an experiment, he added. That, too, appealed to many researchers.
This is a day of new beginnings,
time to remember and move on,
time to believe what love is bringing,
laying to rest the pain that's gone.
For by the life and death of Jesus,
God's mighty Spirit, now as then,
can make for us a world of difference,
as faith and hope are born again.
--Brian Wren
This is a day of new beginnings, 1978, alt.
(1st 2 verses)
time to remember and move on,
time to believe what love is bringing,
laying to rest the pain that's gone.
For by the life and death of Jesus,
God's mighty Spirit, now as then,
can make for us a world of difference,
as faith and hope are born again.
--Brian Wren
This is a day of new beginnings, 1978, alt.
(1st 2 verses)
