Hawthorne effect
noun
The alteration of behaviour by the subjects of a study due to their awareness of being observed.As in any observational study, the Hawthorne effect is a possibility....
- This observation suggests that the act of monitoring produces benefits beyond the so-called Hawthorne effect.
- The modest improvement we observed is probably explained by a Hawthorne effect.
Origin
1960s: from Hawthorne, the name of one of the Western Electric Company's plants in Chicago, where the phenomenon was first observed in the 1920s.