Elton Mayo: Biography Of This Organizational Psychologist
Elton Mayo (1880-1949) was a prominent Australian researcher of industrial, work and organizational psychology. He was especially known for Hawthorne’s research, as well as other important contributions to the social and industrial field of business.
In this article we will a brief review of his life through a biography of Elton Mayo in summary format.
Elton Mayo (full name George Elton Mayo) (1880-1949) He was an industrial psychologist, as well as a sociologist and social theorist He was born in Adelaide (Australia) on December 26, 1880, and died in Guilford (United Kingdom), on September 7, 1949, at the age of 68.
Elton Mayo left a great legacy through his important contributions to the field of organizational psychology and the field of human relations. His contributions were widely recognized within the industrial sociology of the United States during the first half of the 20th century.
Featured contributions
As an initial introduction, and as we have already mentioned, Elton Mayo’s theoretical contributions focused on the field of work and organizational psychology. He was very interested in studying how the physical conditions of work could influence production and performance of the workers, in addition to the psychological effects they produced.
One of their notable conclusions was the fact that, if workers do not feel respected and listened to by their superiors, their cooperation and collaboration on projects decreases. This, logically, affects the objectives, which are difficult to achieve.
On the other hand, Elton Mayo dedicated himself to investigating the most human part of companies and workers, and for this reason investigated different American factories Its objective was to understand how human relationships influenced the productivity of workers and, by extension, companies.
As a result of all this knowledge from his research, Mayo developed a series of theories that referred to this type of relationships in companies.
In relation to the last mentioned, Elton Mayo highlighted the importance of covering the emotional needs of workers, in order to increase not only their mental well-being, but also their productivity in the company. One of the central ideas of Mayo was that Satisfactory work relationships were a greater source of motivation than economic incentives (the salary) at the time of work.
Biography: the life of Elton Mayo
Regarding his origins, Elton Mayo He was born on December 26, 1880, into a wealthy Australian family and of good reputation. His parents were Henrietta Mary Mayo (1852-1930) and George Gibbes Mayo (1845-1921), who was a civil engineer.
He had six brothers, and he was the second of them. Two of his brothers also stood out at that time for their profession ; Helen Mayo (1878-1967), doctor of medicine, and Herbert Mayo (1885-1972), judge of the Supreme Court.
Mayo’s grandparents were George Mayo (1807-1894), another prestigious doctor like his sister, and William Light (1786-1839), who was a colonel in the British Army.
Personal life
Regarding his personal life, Elton Mayo married Dorothea McConell, an Arts student who frequently traveled to Europe, and with whom he had two daughters: Patricia and Ruth. Their wedding took place on April 18, 1913 in Brisbane (Australia).
Trajectory
Regarding Elton Mayo’s life path, we can divide it into two large blocks: his studies and his professional career.
Studies
Elton Mayo studied Philosophy at the University of Adelaide (Australia). Subsequently, He began working as a professor at the University of Queensland (Australia).
Years later, in 1923, Mayo moved to the University of Pennsylvania (United States) to investigate in different companies in the textile sector, where He began to study the sociology of organizations, as well as to investigate the importance of the work environment in companies.
Three years later, in 1926, Mayo’s most important investigation would begin. It was when he started working at Harvard Business School. This investigation, which began in 1927, was called the “Hawthorne investigation,” and lasted five years. Later in this article, we will talk about this research.
After all this, and after the end of World War II, Elton Mayo moved to England, where his daughters and his wife lived at that time. In England Mayo was helping British industry recover during the post-war period He remained there until his death, on September 7, 1949.
Between these years, it should be noted that Elton Mayo was helping the soldiers of the First World War, offering them psychotherapeutic treatment. As we see, Mayo was very interested in studying the relationship between society and individual problems.
Hawthorne Research
Elton Mayo’s best-known research began in 1927. It consisted of a socioeconomic experiment, pioneering in the field of industrial research. The name of this research comes from the Hawthorne electric company where it was carried out
But what did this experiment consist of? The company’s workers were subjected to a series of modifications in their working conditions: schedules, breaks, salaries, lighting conditions and degrees of supervision. The objective of these changes was to observe and determine what conditions were most favorable to increase worker productivity
The initial hypothesis was the following: financial incentives (such as salary) would increase employee efficiency (i.e., their productivity). But this hypothesis was not confirmed, and the results of the research were surprising: what increased productivity was the “extra” attention paid to workers.
The results of Hawthorne’s research were published years later, in 1939, by the research associates of the project: FJ Roethlisberger and William J. Dickson, in the book titled Management and the Worker.
Some relevant conclusions from the research
Beyond the aforementioned results, Multiple conclusions were obtained through the aforementioned experiment Some of them were the following:
On the one hand, production depends on various variables: the physical or physiological capacity of the worker (as established by the classical theory of organizations), social norms and expectations.
On the other hand, in relation to the behavior of the workers, it relied on the group; that is to say, The workers did not act in isolation, but in relation to the group Furthermore, workers who had a production much above or much below what was expected lost the respect, and even the affection, of their other colleagues.
Finally, another of the notable conclusions of the Hawthorne experiment was that the workers, when they feel valued, motivated and satisfied with their work and have positive informal relationships with other colleagues, they are more productive.
