Week 9: Link & Reflection

As we have talked a good deal in class about school psychology, my reflection and link for this week focus on the industrial-organizational aspect of psychology. Our readings for the week in the blue book mentioned the Hawthorne studies, conducted in the Hawthorne Works factory outside of Chicago. I decided to focus on one of the experiments, conducted by Mayo, that took place on an assembly line. Mayo was interested in how fatigue and job monotony affected productivity and how to control them through variables such as rest breaks, work hours, temperature and humidity. "In the process," says one of the links listed below, "he stumbled upon a principle of human motivation that would help to revolutionize the theory and practice of management." Interestingly, it appears Mayo used women for his study, removing them from their position working on the assembly line of a factory and isolating them, frequently changing their work environments. I couldn't find any information as to why Mayo decided to use women, but I would guess he had some sort of motivation to do so.. ?

The first link below gives good description of Mayo's method, including having the team of 6 women be observed by a friendly coworker instead of a domineering supervisor. Be sure to check out the conclusion, such that after series of changes that had positive and negative effects, the team was most productive at the very end of the experiment when placed back in their original working conditions! The key concept here is all about how one feels about their work environment - their level of control and freedom in the situation, their willingness to participate, etc. It's really interesting! Check it out: http://accel-team.com/motivation/hawthorne_02.html

I found the best explanation of the Hawthorne studies as a whole, including diagrams for another of the experiments, here: http://www.analytictech.com/mb021/handouts/bank_wiring.htm