Elton Mayo: biography of this organizational psychologist
A summary of the life of Elton Mayo, one of the most important psychologists in history.
Elton Mayo (1880-1949) was a leading Australian researcher in industrial, work and organizational psychology. He was especially known for the Hawthorne research, as well as for 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. in abridged format.
Elton Mayo: who was he?
Elton Mayo (full name George Elton Mayo) (1880-1949) 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 industrial sociology in the United States during the first half of the 20th century.
Outstanding contributions
By way of 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 the production and performance of workers, in addition to the effects of the physical conditions of work. and performance of workers, as well as the psychological effects they produced.
One of his main conclusions was the fact that if workers do not feel respected and listened to by their superiors, their cooperation and collaboration in projects decreases. This, logically, affects the objectives, which are difficult to achieve.
On the other hand, Elton Mayo devoted himself to investigating the more human side of companies and workers, and therefore investigated different U.S. factories. His objective was to understand how human relations influenced the productivity of workers and, by extension, of 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 latter, Elton Mayo emphasized 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 Mayo's central ideas was that satisfactory working relationships were a greater source of motivation than economic incentives. (salary) when it comes to work.
Biography: the life of Elton Mayo
Regarding his origins, Elton Mayo was born on December 26, 1880, into a well-to-do and reputable 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 siblings, and he was the second of them. Two of his siblings were also prominent in their professions at the time.Helen Mayo (1878-1967), a medical doctor, and Herbert Mayo (1885-1972), a Supreme Court justice.
Mayo's grandparents were George Mayo (1807-1894), another prestigious physician like his sister, and William Light (1786-1839), who was a colonel in the British army.
Personal life
As for his personal life, Elton Mayo married Dorothea McConellHe had two daughters, Patricia and Ruth, with whom he had two daughters: Patricia and Ruth. Their wedding took place on April 18, 1913 in Brisbane (Australia).
Trajectory
As for Elton Mayo's life trajectory, we can divide it into two main blocks: his studies and his professional career.
Studies
Elton Mayo studied philosophy at the University of Adelaide (Australia). Subsequently, he started working as a lecturer at the University of Adelaide (Australia), he began working as a professor at the University of Queensland (Australia). (Australia).
Professional career
Years later, in 1923, Mayo moved to the University of Pennsylvania (USA) to do research in different companies in the textile industry, where he began to study the sociology of textile organizations. he began to study the sociology of organizations, as well as to investigate the importance of the work environment in companies. in companies.
Three years later, in 1926, Mayo's most important research began. This was when he started working at Harvard Business School. This research, which began in 1927, was called "Hawthorne's research" and lasted five years. We will talk about this research later in this article.
After all this, and after the end of World War II, Elton Mayo moved to England, where his daughters and wife were living at the time. In England, Mayo was helping the British industry in its recovery during the post-war period.. He remained there until his death on September 7, 1949.
In between these years, Elton Mayo was helping the soldiers of the First World War, offering them psychotherapeutic treatment. As we can see, Mayo was very interested in studying the relationship between society and individual problems.
Hawthorne's research
Elton Mayo's best known research began in 1927. It consisted of a socioeconomic experiment, a pioneer 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, wages, lighting conditions and degrees of supervision. The purpose of these changes was to observe and determine which conditions were the most favorable for increasing worker productivity..
The initial hypothesis was as follows: economic incentives (such as wages) would increase employee efficiency (i.e., productivity). But this hypothesis was not confirmed, and the results of the research were surprising: it was the "extra" attention paid to workers that increased productivity.
The results of Hawthorne's research were published years later, in 1939, by research associates F.J. Roethlisberger and William J. Dickson, in the book entitled Management and the Worker.
Some relevant conclusions of the research
Beyond the above-mentioned results, multiple conclusions were obtained through the above-mentioned experiment. Some of them were the following:
On the one hand, production depends on several 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, this was supported by the group; that is to say, the workers did not act in isolation, workers did not act in isolation, but in relation to the group.. In addition, workers who produced far above or far below expected output lost the respect, and even the affection, of their other co-workers.
Finally, another important finding of Hawthorne's experiment was that workers, when they feel valued, motivated and satisfied with their work and have positive informal relationships with other co-workers, they are more productive. with other co-workers, are more productive.
Bibliographical references:
- Bendix, R. & Fisher, L.H. (2017). The Perspectives of Elton Mayo. The Anthropology of Organisations.
- Bourke, H. (1086). Mayo, George Elton (1880-1949). Australian Dictionary of Biography, 10(MUP).
- Harvard Business School. (2007). The Human Relations Movement: Harvard Business School and the Hawthorne Experiments, 1924-1933. Baker Library Historical Collections.
(Updated at Apr 15 / 2024)