Hawthorne Studies

1924-1932 Western Electric program whose rising productivity birthed the human-relations movement and a contested effect.

Specifications & Metrics

Illumination experiments from 1924 found output rising in both test and control rooms, whatever the lighting did.
The relay-assembly test room years shifted attention to group norms, attention, and supervision as productivity drivers.
Levitt and List's 2011 re-analysis concluded the original data do not support the famous observation effect.