HAWTHORNE EFFECT && ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH
THE
Hawthorne
EFFECT
WHAT TO CONSIDER:
WHO is watching?
-Bosses v. Readers
WHY would a behavior change happen?
-Conscious or subconscious
WHAT would this take away from readers?
-We may not know who the narrator truly is
"If people were to tell other people everything about themselves,we'd live in a dull world" (McCarthy 200).
THE CORPORITIZATION OF ANTHROPOLOGY:
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Dichotomy: an anthropologist CANNOT be both the "observer" and the "observed"
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Work organizations become the "field" for anthropologists
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U. ultimately cannot make The Great Report b/c instead of being the "obsever," he falls prey to the "morbid fantasies" that test subjects are often prone to debating
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Does being obsrved make something less authentic?
EXPLORE OUR ESSAYS:
CONSTRAINTS OF
THE HAWTHORNE STUDIES
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The original studies contained too many confounding variables to be able to pinpoint any causal effects
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Outside of the lab, results have been more concrete. When people were sent postcards about being in a study of their electrical use, everybody's monthly use went down.
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It is difficult to distinguish between the effects of normative social pressures and the observer effect. What causes the behavioral change?