Hawthorne effect

And that is how my sort of, even in that month, my journaling or my writing time in the morning has kind of evolved and So it started with just that one notebook writing what I did today and I would sort of start at the end of each of the sort of days input I would track a couple things like how many pages I read on my Kindle so they're pretty standardized sizes how many pages I read how long I slept for sometimes things like steps and that kind of stuff And then I kind of realized that I wanted another place to record that stuff.

So the book I was reading at the time mentioned a concept called the Hawthorne effect, which I'd heard of years and years ago, but I'd never paid much mind to it.

but essentially the the concept of the Hawthorne effect if you haven't heard of it is that if we anything that we're monitoring that we're tracking we are generally going to be more successful at achieving I've always been someone that loves collecting data on myself I've got my sort of Apple Watch that collects data on my sleep and heart rates and all of that sort of stuff.

And I've always sort of, when I was training, I was tracking everything, every training load, every sort of monthly, weekly, daily volumes, fatigue level, I tracked everything, which I think was part of the fun of that process for me.

But essentially if we're tracking something, kind of makes sense, it's front of mind, we're able to create little feedback loops so we start to learn what's working and what's not working.

Aside from the pulse oximetry issue, what are the methodological limitations we need to be aware of?

Well, the most prominent limitation by far is the Hawthorne effect.

For our listeners who might not be familiar with the term, the Hawthorne effect refers to a famous phenomenon where individuals alter their behavior simply because they know they are being observed.

It goes back to factory workers in the 1920s working harder when researchers were watching them.

Exactly.

And then the question is, it's an intervention cohort.

Is it being exposed to the app or is it being exposed to just this reminder that potentially we should have more conversations about sexually transmitted infections? And it's hard to separate the whole Hawthorne effect of it's a study and we're paying attention to it now versus the app itself.

So there's definitely an opportunity for increased discussion around sexually transmitted infections with young adults and adolescents.

And we're obviously not doing that very well at baseline.

Go to sharejesus.com.au for all the information.

The Hawthorne effect.

The Hawthorne effect.

Let me give you two questions before I do that.

Two questions.

People reaching a friend, walking with people, not events.

Second question, if evangelism disappeared from your church tomorrow, from your church plant, would your current metrics even reveal that? If evangelism disappeared from your church plant tomorrow, would your current metrics even reveal that? Lots of conversations in Australia right now around the metrics in our churches and what the metrics need to change to.

The Hawthorne effect.

And could you share a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

I think the Hawthorne effect was, was something that I held onto when I was getting my PhD at LSU, and the Hawthorne effect was at the GE facility in the early 1900s.

They really wanted to look at efficiency, and they wanted to figure out the most efficient factories.

And they found that when researchers went to the Hawthorne facility and paid attention to the employees, their efficiency went up.

So it really had nothing to do with what standards and procedures they were putting in place.

It had to do with, "I'm being paid attention to, and so I'm gonna work harder." And so that really was the, the foundation of all of this research that I've been doing throughout my 25 years as a professor, is as a leader, you've got to pay attention to your people.

But how does mere documentation actually move the needle on wealth? If I'm still buying the cake or the shoes, how does writing it down help?

Because it leverages the Hawthorne effect.

The Hawthorne effect.

It's a psychological phenomenon where individuals alter their behavior simply in response to their awareness of being observed.

Oh, that's fascinating.

Not available in all states.

The Hawthorne effect, but with robots.

Let's start with a definition because I like us all to be on the same page before I start waving my arms about.

Eval awareness is when an AI model recognizes that it is currently being evaluated, tested, or observed rather than being used for a genuine everyday task.

Others will comment on the artificiality of the setup, pointing out that a real person wouldn't phrase a request that way.

One model, when placed in a fictional corporate scenario, essentially remarked that the whole thing smelled like a controlled experiment, which it was.

So why does this matter? Why not just say, "Well done, clever machine," and move on? Because of something psychologists have known about humans for nearly a century, the Hawthorne effect.

Back in the 1920s and '30s, researchers at the Hawthorne Works factory near Chicago were studying whether better lighting made workers more productive.