Hawthorne Effect: The Questionable Myth That Continues Existing

What does it feel like to be watched as you work on something? Does it feel pressurising? Do you feel stressed? Does that make you want to do better to show to the person that you are able to do the job you are doing well? If your answer to the last question is yes, that is the Hawthorne effect in action! 

…Well, somewhat. 

Based on the known definition of the effect, this would be a correct example of the effect. However, due to some reasons which we will explain later on in this article, the Hawthorne effect is not exactly a “real” effect that has undergone proper research into establishing it as an effect. In this article, we will explore what the Hawthorne effect is supposed to mean, its history, and why its existence as widely accepted knowledge is questionable. 

What is the Hawthorne effect? 

The Hawthorne effect is an effect where the person being watched will improve their performance at the activity they are doing. For instance, if the person is tasked to clean their room, a parent or friend watching them clean could cause the person to be more efficient in cleaning as compared to without being watched. The effect was named after Hawthorne, Illinois, which is the place where Western Electric’s Hawthorne Works, an electric company, asked for a research to be conducted to determine the workers’ productivity based on the work environment of the workers (Cherry, 2025). 

The effect was discovered by analysing the series of experiments that were done in the electric plant. The more referenced example of this set of experiments would be the changes in lighting (Cherry, 2025). When the experiment was conducted to note the workers’ performance by varying the intensity of light, both workers who were in a room with dim light and those in a room with brighter lighting experienced an increase in productivity. Such results were also seen in other experiments such as when people had longer break times or chose the people they could work with (Wikipedia Contributors, 2019). 

Despite this, after the experiments are over, the workers’ performance would fall. This led to the theory that people would work more efficiently when being watched. 

Why is it questionable?

Because of how the results were drawn, the conclusion drawn was questioned multiple times, as people could not recreate the results and prove that this effect exists at all (Cherry, 2025). Its inability to be replicated caused other scholars to question the validity of the effect. As psychology is a scientific field, psychologists use the scientific method when conducting their experiments, which includes “stating the question, offering a theory and then constructing rigorous laboratory or field experiments to test the hypothesis” (American Psychological Association, 2013). As such, with the lack of experiments to prove this effect to be true, the Hawthorne effect could technically be considered a myth. 

Yet, the knowledge of the effect continues to be proliferated in the academic scene, serving as a general explanation of how people can behave during an experiment (Cherry, 2025). 

How does such knowledge continue to exist? Well, this is largely due to something known as the affirmative-citation bias (Letrud and Hernes, 2019), where researchers would cite ideas that affirm their hypothesis in their research. As these psychologists would want explanations that serve their own interests (Kompier, 2006), they would be more inclined to cite pieces of material that positively aid in their research as opposed to being against. As such, with more and more people citing this effect, knowledge soon turned into important knowledge that is taught to psychology students in their first years as well (Kompier, 2006). 

Conclusion 

In conclusion, the Hawthorne effect is a strange “myth” that explains how having the pressure of another person in the vicinity will cause the worker to feel motivated to increase their performance. It managed to proliferate this far because of the “cirtation-affirmative bias”, which caused the “myth” to be cited over and over until knowledge  eventually felt like the “truth”. As a result, the Hawthrone effect continued to exist and be believed by others to explain the behaviour of people who are watched as they work. Even though the effect sounds reasonable, science requires a methodological process and results that can be replicated in order to prove that knowledge is truth and not remain as a theory. 

Works Cited 

American Psychological Association (2013). Science of Psychology. [online] American Psychological Association. Available at: https://www.apa.org/education-career/guide/science [Accessed 2 Jan. 2026].

Cherry, K. (2025). The Hawthorne Effect and Behavioral Studies. [online] Verywell Mind. Available at: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-hawthorne-effect-2795234  [Accessed 1 Jan. 2026].

Letrud, K. and Hernes, S. (2019). Affirmative citation bias in scientific myth debunking: A three-in-one case study. PLOS ONE, 14(9), p.e0222213. doi:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0222213. 

Kompier, M.A.J. (2006). The ‘Hawthorne effect’ is a myth, but what keeps the story going?. Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health, 32(5), pp.402–412. doi:https://doi.org/10.5271/sjweh.1036. 

Wikipedia Contributors (2019). Hawthorne effect. [online] Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect [Accessed 2 Jan. 2026].