>From: "Harrow, Stuart" <bvc2206@dcrb.dla.mil>
>Thanks for the reference to the Hawthorne experiment. As I recall the
>context, the workers at the plant respnded to the attention; that is they
>recognized that someone was listening. You phrase it as participation in
>an experiment
I was told by a colleague an interesting aspect of the Hawthorne study
which has rarely been reported.
The assembly line workers studied were mostly unmarried women in their
20's.
The researchers were mostly young men in their 20's.
Perhaps we have misinterpreted the particular attention that the women
were responding to; after all the lights were being turned down !
My colleague tells me that quite few marriages resulted from the study.
Urban myth ?
Who cares; it is a great story, and a timely reminder that our conclusions
depend on what we think is important.
Cheers
Bob
BOB WILLIAMS
bobwill@actrix.gen.nz http://www.gil.com.au/comm/profcounsel/elogue.htm
"Only Connect" EM Forster
--Bob Williams <bobwill@actrix.gen.nz>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>