Question

In a minimum of 100 words, an event that had an impact on I/O psychology was the Hawthorne studies. What were they? How are the results from those studies used in organizations today?

Answer 1

The Hawthorne studes were conducted on workers of the Hawthorne Plant of western electric company by Elton Mayo in 1920's. The Hawthorne studies were part of a Refocus On managerial strategy incorporating the socio-psychological aspects of human behaviour in organizations. The purpose of the experiments was to study the effects of physical conditions on productivity. It was found in the studies that physical conditions like well-lit lighting, having clean workstations, allowing employees to build and work in teams and having breaks increased productivity. During the Hawthorne studies when resear

chers adjusted an independent variable on another dependent variable ,productivity changed. But after Relatively a short time those productive gains dissappeared and output ended up drifting back to the previous level. The conclusion was that changes in working conditions could impact productivity but those productive gains are short term.