`Hawthorne' Peach

Hawthorne Effect

Understanding the Hawthorne effect.

Researchers investigated the effectiveness of patient controlled analgesia for patients presenting to emergency departments with pain from traumatic injuries. A randomised controlled trial with a parallel groups study design was used. The control treatment was usual care, with analgesia titrated by nurses according to hospital guidelines. The participants were patients aged 18-75 years presenti...

Phony Peach and Peach Mosaic

The "Hawthorne effect"--what did the original Hawthorne studies actually show?

The "Hawthorne effect" is often mentioned as a possible explanation for positive results in intervention studies. It is used to cover many phenomena, not only unwitting confounding of variables under study by the study itself, but also behavioral change due to an awareness of being observed, active compliance with the supposed wishes of researchers because of special attention received, or posi...

The Hawthorne effect and energy awareness.

The feeling of being observed or merely participating in an experiment can affect individuals' behavior. Referred to as the Hawthorne effect, this inconsistently observed phenomenon can both provide insight into individuals' behavior and confound the interpretation of experimental manipulations. Here, we pursue both topics in examining how the Hawthorne effect emerges in a large field experimen...