<Li> Shortening the day by 30 minutes (output went up); shortening it more (output per hour went up, but overall output decreased); returning to the first condition (where output peaked). </Li> <P> Changing a variable usually increased productivity, even if the variable was just a change back to the original condition . However it is said that this is the natural process of the human being adapting to the environment, without knowing the objective of the experiment occurring . Researchers concluded that the workers worked harder because they thought that they were being monitored individually . </P> <P> Researchers hypothesized that choosing one's own coworkers, working as a group, being treated as special (as evidenced by working in a separate room), and having a sympathetic supervisor were the real reasons for the productivity increase . One interpretation, mainly due to Elton Mayo, was that "the six individuals became a team and the team gave itself wholeheartedly and spontaneously to cooperation in the experiment ." (There was a second relay assembly test room study whose results were not as significant as the first experiment .) </P> <P> The purpose of the next study was to find out how payment incentives would affect productivity . The surprising result was that productivity actually decreased . Workers apparently had become suspicious that their productivity may have been boosted to justify firing some of the workers later on . The study was conducted by Elton Mayo and W. Lloyd Warner between 1931 and 1932 on a group of fourteen men who put together telephone switching equipment . The researchers found that although the workers were paid according to individual productivity, productivity decreased because the men were afraid that the company would lower the base rate . Detailed observation of the men revealed the existence of informal groups or "cliques" within the formal groups . These cliques developed informal rules of behavior as well as mechanisms to enforce them . The cliques served to control group members and to manage bosses; when bosses asked questions, clique members gave the same responses, even if they were untrue . These results show that workers were more responsive to the social force of their peer groups than to the control and incentives of management . </P>

Conclusions from the hawthorne relay assembly test room studies were that