Jordan is conducting an experiment with her employees. She wants to see how temperatures affect the productivity of the team. Jordan just completed the first phase of her experiment, in which she had a group of employees perform job-related tasks in a special area where the temperature was 10 degrees cooler than on the factory floor. No matter the temperature, employees in the experimental group consistently outperformed employees in the factory. The Hawthorne effect suggests that the most likely reason for this improvement in performance is that the cooler working conditions allowed the employees in the experiment to work harder without getting tired.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The Hawthorne effect refers to the tendency of people to behave differently when they know they are being studied. Thus, the improvement in productivity may have resulted from psychological factors associated with participating in the experiment rather than the change in temperature.

Jordan Is Conducting an Experiment with Her Employees