“Harry Braverman says in “Labor and Monopoly Capital”: The Hawthorne tests were based on…”
“Harry Braverman says in “Labor and Monopoly Capital”: The Hawthorne tests were based on behaviorist psychology and were supposed to confirm that workers performance could be predicted by pre-hire testing. However, the Hawthorne study showed “that the performance of workers had little relation to ability and in fact often bore a reverse relation to test scores…”. What the studies really showed was that the workplace was not “a system of bureaucratic formal organization on the Weberian model, nor a system of informal group relations, as in the interpretation of Mayo and his followers but rather a system of power, of class antagonisms”. This discovery was a blow to those hoping to apply the behavioral sciences to manipulate workers in the interest of management.”
– Hawthorne effect
