The Hawthorne Effect

This can be viewed as a self-fulfilling prophecy, but Millon mainly focuses on the experiment being affected by participant bias, as Rosenhan does not enforce blind controls (Millon, 1975). It should also be noted when looking at the above, that Rosenhan further reduces the validity of his experiment by involving himself as a participant, which shows experimenter bias, and also may be key to why the controls Millon looks at were not enforced with his participants.

The Milgram Experiment conducted at Yale University in 1963, focused on whether a person would follow instructions from someone showing authority. Students (actors) were asked questions by the teachers (participants), if the students got the answer wrong they would receive a shock each higher than the previous. The shocks ranged from Slight shock (15v) to Danger! (300v) to XXX (450v). Stanley Milgram wanted to know if people would do things just because someone with authority told them to, even if it was hurting someone. I believe that the experiment was a good way to test the obedience of people

In psychology, there are lots of controversial experiments that have been done and are still talked about today. The experiment that sticks out for me is Zimbardo’s Prison study, it catches my eye for more than one reason. In this study, Philip Zimbardo gathered up a bunch of students to play the roles of prisoners and guards. Zimbardo wanted to investigate how readily people would conform to the roles of guard and prisoner in a role played situation that would be equivalent to prison life. (McLeod 1) During this experiment that lasted six days, Zimbardo found out that the guards treated the prisoners horribly (McLeod 1) This turned the tables and Zimbardo became interested in finding out if the brutality of the guards were due to their malicious personalities or if it had more to do with the environment of being in a prison. One form of behavior that Zimbardo noticed was that the prisoners did not respect the authority of the guards which resulted in the guards being aggressive towards the prisoners (McLeod 1).

The experimental study that I chose to write about is the Stanford Prison Experiment, which was run by Phillip Zimbardo. More than seventy applicants answered an ad looking for volunteers to participate in a study that tested the physiological effects of prison life. The volunteers were all given interviews and personality tests. The study was left with twenty-four male college students. For the experiment, eighteen volunteers took part, with the other volunteers being on call. The volunteers were then divided into two groups, guards and prisoners, randomly assigned by coin flips. The experiment began on August 14th, 1971 in the basement of Stanford’s psychology building. To create the prison cells for the prisoners, the doors were taken

Throughout time, history and studies strongly suggest that environment plays a key role in human behavior. This even includes compromising ones moral compass to follow an authority figure or how one might use their power in the environment they are in. Studies such as the Millgram Experiment in 1962 to the Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971 were two similar studies that showed how easily people are swayed from what they think is right and wrong. In the novella of Fredrick Douglass, his autobiography proves the results of the studies. In all the environments that Fredrick Douglass experienced, he witness the power of authority first hand.

As human being we receive and perceive information in a wide variety of different ways. The understanding of communication to one person might be the total opposite to another person. Counselors within the human service field have to obtain the abilities and skills to interact and communicate with clients in a counseling setting. In doing so a counselor has to possession ability to use verbal and non-verbal communication skills, ask open and close ended question during the sessions, use reflective techniques, and identify explorations,

Authority In the Milgram experiment it displays how an authoritative figure can affect how a person acts. While in the crucible it demonstrates how a person with authoritative power can abuse it for personal gain. An authoritative figure can greatly alter the way a person or society acts; as displayed through the Milgram experiment and the Crucible.

The Milgram experiment was performed by the sociologist Stanley Milgram to discover the power of authority. In this experiment, Stanley was trying to demonstrate the willingness people have to follow orders from an authority figure. Even thought the results of this experiment were very surprising, I think that this kind of experiments would allows us to study and understand better the human’s nature. This experiment showed a side of human’s nature that was unknown by the scientistic community, and this is the reason why we need to perform more experiment like this one.

The informed consent were not obtained for the participants to engage in the experiment at their own free will, instead they were deceived and made to belief that they were benefitting, such experiment which has become widely known

The "Hawthorne effect" is often associated with positive results as it creates awareness of being observed, and study participants consciously change their behavior to actively comply with the researcher’s wishes (Wickström & Bendix, 2000). However, some studies suggested a negligible effect of direct observation on the observed participants (Buckley, Erstad, Kopp, Theodorou, & Priestley, 2007; Kopp, Erstad, Allen, Theodorou, & Priestley, 2006). There was no significant difference on medication error rates between the first and last day of observation (DeYoung et al., 2009). The time spent by researches with nurses to acclimate to researchers' presence before the start of study has minimized the Hawthorne effect (Dwibedi et al.,

Parker and Baumrind also question the legitimacy of the experiment and whether the results were influenced by the authority figure alone or by multiple factors. Baumrind states that the experimenter’s cold demeanor and apathetic demands caused the subjects to act in ways they would not have regularly (Baumrind 225-227). The isolation of the subjects is another factor according to Baumrind. The lack of someone to strengthen the subject causes the subject to fold to the authority (Baumrind 225). Parker also questions the legitimacy of Milgram’s experiment. He says it is a combination of several different factors that will result in the subjects actions, not solely a man demanding a subject to complete a task. He continues in saying that people’s actions are influenced by the situation and what is happening around them (Parker 238). Parker quotes Ross in saying, “We can take ordinary people and make them show a degree of obedience or conformity… to a degree that we would normally assume you would only see in a rare few” (Parker 239). Parker continues with saying a subject’s obedience is not determined by a simple command but by a range of factors. In Understanding Behavior in the Milgram Obedience Experiment: The Role of Personality, Situations, and Their Interactions, the author Thomas Blass states that

The Milgram experiment is probably one of the most well-known experiments of the psy-sciences. (De Vos, J. (2009). Stanley Milgram was a psychologist from Yale University. He conducted an experiment focusing on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience. Milgram wanted to investigate whether Germans were particularly obedient to authority figures as this was a common explanation for the Nazi killings in World War II. Milgram selected people for his experiment by newspaper advertising. He looked for male participants to take part in a study of learning at Yale University.

Elton Mayo is best known for the Hawthorne effect. Mayo was well educated, studying at several different universities including engineering at the University of Glasgow. Mayo faced a lot of rejection during his career but his work greatly influenced our working environments today. He believed that industries were destroying communal harmony and that production would increase if the workers were better taken care of. He is quoted as saying that workers must rise above “indignation and frustration which the…new industrial society forced on workers” (Hoopes 130). These new managerial styles in addition to a capitalist leaning society created an unfriendly environment for the majority of workers. Despite his attempts, his theories and ideas often fell

The Stanford Prison Experiment shows the type of people we become when put in certain positions. As humans we can not truly predict what we will become in these positions of power and solitude. Another example of situational psychology is what happened in Abu Gharib. Abu Gharib became a prison for suspected terrorists against the United States. The guards of the prison, who were US military, treated the prisoners like animals. They put them on leashes, made them strip and were put in extremely awkward positions, and sometimes they went as far as killing them. Now the guards can not be completely forgiven for what they did but the situation they were put in was part of the reason for how they behaved. They were constantly reminded of their friends being killed in combat and were surrounded by violence themselves. Also, the way they were behaving became the norm, they were not getting in trouble for it and they were soldiers, killing machines. Their job is not to watch a bunch

     Work change is further complicated by the fact that is does not produce a direct adjustment as in case of air molecules. Instead, it operates trough each employee’s attitudes to produce a response that is conditioned by feelings toward the change. This relationship was illustrated in a series of classic experiments by Roethlisberger and his associates. In one instance lighting was improved regularly according to the theory that better lighting would lead to greater productivity. As was expected, productivity did increase. The lighting was decreased to illustrate the reverse effect-reduced productivity. Instead, productivity increased further! Lighting was again decreased. The result was still greater productivity! Finally, lighting was decreased to 0.06 of a footcandle, which is approximately equivalent to moonlight. According to Roethlisberger, “Not until