THE ROUGH GUIDE TO PSYCHOLOGYpsychologist Sandi Mann warned of signs that boredom at work was on
the increase, perhaps because so many tasks in the modern office are
becoming automated. Mann cited a 2004 survey by the business consul-
tancy DDI, which found that a third of Britons reported feeling bored
for much of the day, and a Washington Post survey which found that 55
percent of US employees were “not engaged” at work.
There’s some evidence that boredom is more common in people who
are overly focused on their own moods and who have trouble sustaining
attention to the task at hand. The opposite of boredom is the idea of flow,
developed by psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihály. The joyful, timeless
sensation of flow occurs when you’re absorbed in a challenging task
that stretches your abilities, but doesn’t exceed them. Another antidote
to boredom is mindfulness – savouring the present moment, absorbing
the colours and sounds around you and letting thoughts trickle through
your mind without passing judgement on them.
Hawthorne experiments
Probably the most famous studies ever conducted in business
psychology were at the Hawthorne works of the Western Electric
Company in Chicago in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Initiated by
Australian psychologist George Elton John Mayo, the studies involved
making changes to factory working-conditions, including payment
and supervision, and observing the effects on staff output. The
participants were largely female staff working on telephone relays.
The main finding was that the observed changes in productivity
came about not because of the modifications put in place, but simply
because the participants were the focus of increased attention – a
phenomenon that’s since come to be known as the “Hawthorne
Effect”, and which is often frequently invoked to explain the outcomes
of other psychology studies.
However, in 2008 Mecca Chiesa at the University of Kent and
Sandy Hobbs at the University of West of Scotland strongly criticized
the popular use in psychology of this term. They reviewed over
two hundred books published between 1953 and 2003, and found
that the use of the term “Hawthorne Effect” had become so broad
and varied as to be virtually meaningless. Sometimes the term was
used in its original sense, but elsewhere it referred to the effects of
anything from a warm climate to concern or friendly supervision. And
while the Hawthorne Effect originally referred to effects on improved
productivity, many authors have since used it to refer to all manner of
outcomes, including feelings of pride and job satisfaction.