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What are primary and secondary social groups. Concept of social group

3.3.4.2. Primary and secondary groups

A primary group is a group in which communication is maintained by direct personal contacts, highly emotional involvement of members in the affairs of the group, which leads members to a high degree of identification with the group. The primary group is characterized by a high degree of solidarity and a deeply developed sense of “we”.

G.S. Antipina identifies the following features characteristic of primary groups: “small composition, spatial proximity of their members, spontaneity, intimacy of relationships, duration of existence, unity of purpose, voluntariness of joining the group and informal control over the behavior of members.”

The concept of “primary group” was first introduced in 1909 by C. Cooley in relation to a family in which stable emotional relationships develop between members. Charles Cooley considered the family “primary” because it is the first group through which the process of socialization of the infant is carried out. He also included groups of friends and groups of closest neighbors as “primary groups” [see about this: 139. P.330-335].

Later, the term was used by sociologists to study any group that had close personal relationships between its members. Primary groups act as the primary link between society and the individual. Thanks to them, a person realizes his belonging to certain social communities and is able to participate in the life of the whole society.

The importance of primary groups is very great; in them, especially during early childhood, the process of primary socialization of the individual occurs. First, the family, and then the primary educational and work teams have a huge impact on the position of the individual in society. Primary groups form personality. In them, the process of socialization of the individual takes place, the development of patterns of behavior, social norms, values and ideals. Each individual finds in the primary group an intimate environment, sympathy and opportunities for the realization of personal interests.

The primary group is most often an informal group, since formalization leads to its transformation into a group of a different type. For example, if formal ties begin to play an important role in the family, then it disintegrates as a primary group and transforms into a formal small group.

Ch. Cooley noted two main functions of small primary groups:

1. Act as a source of moral standards that a person receives in childhood and by which he is guided throughout his subsequent life.

2. Act as a means of supporting and stabilizing an adult [see: II. P.40].

A secondary group is a group organized to achieve certain goals, within which there are almost no emotional relationships and in which substantive contacts, most often indirect, predominate. Members of this group have an institutionalized system of relationships, and their activities are regulated by rules. If the primary group is always focused on the relationships between its members, then the secondary group is goal-oriented. Secondary groups tend to coincide with large and formal groups that have an institutionalized system of relationships, although small groups can also be secondary.

The main importance in these groups is not given to the personal qualities of the group members, but to their ability to perform certain functions. For example, in a factory, the position of engineer, secretary, stenographer, or worker can be held by any person who has the necessary training for this. The individual characteristics of each of them are indifferent to the plant; the main thing is that they cope with their work, then the plant can function. For a family or group of players (for example, football), the individual characteristics and personal qualities of each are unique and mean a lot, and therefore none of them can simply be replaced by another.

Since in a secondary group all roles are already clearly distributed, its members very often know little about each other. As is known, there is no emotional relationship between them, which is typical for family members and friends. For example, in labor-related organizations, industrial relations will be the main ones. In secondary groups, not only roles, but also methods of communication are already clearly defined in advance. Due to the fact that conducting a personal conversation is not always possible and effective, communication often becomes more formal and is carried out through telephone calls and various written documents.

For example, a school class, a student group, a production team, etc. are always internally divided into primary groups of individuals who sympathize with each other, between whom interpersonal contacts arise more or less often. When leading a secondary group, it is imperative to take into account primary social formations.

Theorists note that over the past two hundred years there has been a weakening of the role of primary groups in society. Sociological studies conducted by Western sociologists over several decades have confirmed that secondary groups currently dominate. But numerous data have also been obtained indicating that the primary group is still quite stable and is an important link between the individual and society. Research on primary groups was carried out in several areas: the role of primary groups in industry, during natural disasters, etc. was clarified. The study of people's behavior in different conditions and situations has shown that primary groups still play an important role in the structure of the entire social life of society (see: 225, pp. 150-154].

A social group is defined as a set of people who have some common social characteristic. Such a group performs a certain function in society.

Unlike the communities discussed above, a social group has the following features:

there are stable interactions between people, which contributes to the strength and stability of the group over a long time;
it has a relatively high degree of cohesion;
the composition of the group is very homogeneous: it is characterized by a similar set of characteristics and features;
can be part of broader communities as a constituent element, without losing its specificity.

It is useful to distinguish between primary and secondary social groups.

Primary social groups

To primary social groups include those characterized by a high level of emotional connections, intimacy and solidarity. This solidarity may be at a group level, or it may have a social scope.

The characteristic features of the primary group are:

small staff;
spatial proximity of group members;
relative stability and duration of existence;
community of values, norms and forms of behavior;
the voluntary nature of people's connections;
moral and informal ways of ensuring discipline.

Primary groups include a school class, a group, a course at an educational institution, a circle of friends and like-minded people. In the primary group, a person receives initial socialization, becomes familiar with patterns of behavior, evaluates elders, emerging “natural leaders,” and masters social norms, values and ideals. Developing in primary groups, a person realizes his connection with certain social communities, with society as a whole.

Sociology conducts special studies of the peculiarities of the emergence and functioning of primary groups, since it is in them that many of the features of the mentality, ideology and social behavior of adult citizens are laid down. In recent years, candidate and doctoral dissertations have already been devoted to these problems.

Primary groups are usually small groups.

Secondary social groups

Secondary social group represents a community in which the connections and interactions of participants are unemotional, most often pragmatic, in nature. The secondary group is most often focused on some goal. In such groups, impersonal relationships predominate, individual personality qualities are not of particular importance, and the ability to perform certain functions is valued mainly.

In secondary social groups, emotional connections are not excluded, but their main functions are to achieve their goals. Some primary groups may also exist and operate within the secondary group.

As a rule, secondary groups are numerous. Group size has a significant impact on intragroup interactions and overall social relationships. This type of group includes, for example, the electorate of a particular party, as well as various interest movements (sports fans, associations of car enthusiasts, Internet lovers). Secondary groups unite people according to ethnicity, profession, demographic basis, etc.

In our country it is customary to distinguish between formal and informal groups.

Formal group is considered a social community, the position of which is regulated by normative documents - laws, norms, charters, official instructions, etc. In Soviet times, the position of various communities in the country was determined by the statutes of the CPSU and resolutions of their governing bodies. Therefore, the charter of any public organization in the USSR contained a provision recognizing the “leading role of the party.”

In some cases, the type of formal groups also includes institutions of a mass nature, created by the authorities or citizens with the permission of the authorities to implement certain specific tasks. Among such institutions are the school, army, enterprise, bank, etc. Such institutions have a clear structure, hierarchy, strict division of labor, and relations between people are regulated by rules and internal regulations.

It should be added that the concept of “formal groups” is in some cases used to designate institutions and organizations that exist only on paper and, naturally, do not play a declared role in public life. This type of group includes “labor collectives,” the creation of which was announced in the 1984 USSR law. These labor collectives were given such broad powers that they had no opportunity to implement them. They had to control the work of deputies of the Supreme Council, local government bodies, courts, etc., determine the work program of enterprises and institutions, discuss and express their opinions on all issues affecting the country. Hence their formal character. Naturally, subsequent legislation forgot about labor collectives.

Sociology emphasizes that the peculiarity of this kind of groups is precisely that they pursue real goals. And the point is not that there are no groups that do not correspond to these properties. They arise, are created, but their duration of existence is insignificant.

Informal groups are usually considered to be those that are not provided for in legal norms, programs and political documents. They are distinguished by their amateur character. In some cases, such groups become widespread and influential. This applies, for example, to NGOs - “non-governmental organizations”. Ultimately, government institutions have to recognize them and transfer them to the category of “formal organizations.” Informal groups arise spontaneously based on the initiative of one or several individuals. However, there are various legal norms regulating the emergence and activities of such amateur groups. In principle, to obtain legal status as a legal entity, a group must register with the appropriate government agency.

For some groups, a permissive registration principle has been established, that is, the group must obtain official permission. For other groups, the declarative principle is established, that is, the association being created simply informs the government body about its creation. This procedure is established, for example, for creating a trade union, a small enterprise without forming a legal entity, etc. Let us note in this regard that in some countries such a notification procedure is carried out by mail, which eliminates the danger of corruption and lengthy bureaucratic red tape.

In informal groups of the amateur type there are friendly relations, there is no strict hierarchy and discipline. The number of such groups is usually small. They are built on the principle of “proximity” - territorial, emotional and psychological, or by common interests (neighbors, hunters, fans, peers, friends, tourists). Relations within such groups are personal in nature; sympathies, habits, traditions, and mutual respect play a large role.

Informal groups are not closed in the sense that their members can simultaneously belong to and act in other communities.

A special type of group includes various “secret” associations that exist in almost all countries. If such groups begin to violate laws, they attract increased attention from law enforcement agencies.

At the same time, researching such groups is quite difficult, since they rarely allow outsiders into their ranks and do not share their intentions with them.

Regardless of what type the social groups considered are, they all play and can play an important role in the social and political life of the country.

From all that has been said, an important conclusion follows about the need for serious scientific research into all processes occurring in society, especially those that cannot be directly observed.

Primary and secondary groups

The concept of “primary group” was first introduced in 1909 by C. Cooley in relation to a family in which stable emotional relationships develop between members. Charles Cooley considered the family to be “primary” because it is the first group through which the process of socialization of the infant is carried out. He also included groups of friends and groups of closest neighbors as “primary groups” [see about this: 139. P.330-335].

Charles Cooley noted two main functions of small primary groups:

1. Act as a source of moral standards that a person receives in childhood and by which he is guided throughout his subsequent life.

2. Act as a means of supporting and stabilizing an adult [see: II. P.40].

The discovery of the “reference group” phenomenon belongs to the American social psychologist G. Hyman (Hyman H.H. The psychology of ststys. N.I. 1942). This term was transferred to sociology from social psychology. At first, psychologists understood a “reference group” as a group whose standards of behavior an individual imitates and whose norms and values he assimilates.

During a series of experiments that G. Hyman conducted on student groups, he discovered that some members of small groups shared the norms of behavior. accepted not in the group to which they belong, but in some other one towards which they are oriented, i.e. accept the norms of groups in which they are not really included. G. Hyman called such groups reference groups. In his opinion, it was the “reference group” that helped explain the “paradox of why some individuals do not assimilate54 the positions of the groups in which they are directly included” [cit. according to: 7. P. 260], but they internalize patterns and standards of behavior of other groups of which they are not members. Therefore, in order to explain the behavior of an individual, it is important to study the group to which the individual “attributes” himself, which he accepts as a standard and to which he “refers,” and not the one that directly “surrounds” him. Thus, the term itself was born from the English verb to refer, i.e. refer to something.

Another American psychologist M. Sheriff, whose name is associated with the final approval of the concept of “reference group” in American sociology, considering small groups influencing the behavior of an individual, divided them into two types: membership groups (of which the individual is a member) and non-membership, or actually reference groups (of which the individual is not a member, but whose values and norms he correlates his behavior with) [see: II. P.56-57]. In this case, the concepts of reference and member groups were considered to be opposite.

Later, other researchers (R. Merton, T. Newcome) extended the concept of “reference group” to all associations that acted as a standard for an individual in assessing his own social status, actions, views, etc. In this regard, both the group of which the individual was already a member and the group of which he would like to be or was previously began to act as a reference group.

The “referent group” for an individual, points out Ya. Shchepansky, is a group with which he voluntarily identifies himself, i.e. “its patterns and rules, its ideals become the ideals of the individual, and the role imposed by the group is fulfilled faithfully, with the deepest conviction.”

Thus, the term “reference group” is currently used in two ways in the literature. In the first case, it refers to the group opposing the membership group. In the second case, a group that arises within a membership group, i.e. a circle of people selected from a real group as a “significant social circle” for an individual. The norms accepted by the group become personally acceptable to the individual only when they are accepted by this circle of people [see: 9. P.197],

Asch Conformity Experiments), published in 1951, were a series of studies that impressively demonstrated the power of conformity in groups.

In experiments led by Solomon Asch, students were asked to participate in an eye test. In fact, in most experiments, all but one of the participants were decoys, and the study was to test the reaction of one student to the behavior of the majority.

The participants (real experimental subjects and decoys) were seated in the audience. The students' task was to announce aloud their opinions about the length of several lines in a series of displays. They were asked which line was longer than the others, etc. The decoys gave the same, clearly incorrect answer.

When the subjects answered correctly, many of them experienced extreme discomfort. Moreover, 75% of the subjects submitted to a significantly erroneous majority view on at least one issue. The total proportion of erroneous answers was 37%; in the control group, only one person out of 35 gave one erroneous answer. When the “conspirators” were not unanimous in their judgment, the subjects were much more likely to disagree with the majority. When there were two independent subjects, or when one of the dummy participants was tasked with giving the correct answers, the error dropped by more than four times. When one of the dummy ones gave incorrect answers, but also did not coincide with the main one, the error was also reduced: to 9-12%, depending on the radicalism of the “third opinion”.

Social institutions.

Most of us start our lives in an organization - in a maternity hospital. Doctors, nurses, anesthesiologists, nurses and others work there; they all care about our health. After leaving the maternity hospital, we find ourselves in other organizations - nurseries, kindergartens, primary and secondary schools - each of them has a specific structure and operating procedure. After graduating from school, we will again have to avoid organizations. As adults, we go to work in one of them. We deal with organizations such as financial management, army, police, courts, banks, shops, etc. After we retire, we will be faced with social security and health care organizations; it is possible that we will end up in a hospital or even a nursing home. Even when a person dies, organizations do not leave him to his fate. It is handled by funeral homes, banks, law offices, tax agencies and courts, where heirs settle the affairs of the deceased.

Organizations have emerged relatively recently. In less developed societies, concerns about health, education, care for the elderly, etc. carried out in the family or by family members.

But in industrial countries, life becomes much more complicated and the need arises to create many organizations. Therefore, it is necessary to consider in detail the essence of organizations and their forms.

Personal relationships are established between members of primary groups (family, group of friends), which involve many aspects of their individuality. In contrast, secondary groups are formed to achieve specific goals. Their members play, for example, strictly defined roles, and there is almost no emotional relationship between them. The main type of secondary group is an organization - a large social group formed to achieve specific goals. Department stores, publishing houses, universities, post office, army, etc. - this list can be continued endlessly.

In real life it is difficult to make a clear distinction between two entities: the primary group and the formal organization. For example, some groups are similar to organizations in that they exist to achieve certain goals, but their structure resembles primary groups. These are charismatic groups. They are led by a leader distinguished by charm and enormous attractive power, or charisma; group members deify the leader and are ready to serve him faithfully. A typical charismatic group is Christ and his disciples.

The essence of a charismatic group is the instability of their organizational structure and dependence on the leader. There is no hierarchy of service (such as the positions of vice president or secretary, etc.) that exist as long as the group exists, regardless of its composition at any given time. The roles of members of such groups are determined in accordance with their relationship to the leader. There is no such thing as promotion here - everything depends only on the leader’s disposition towards one or another member of the group. Because personal relationships can be very volatile, the group structure is also unstable. Moreover, in charismatic groups there are no stable intra-group norms, in contrast to more structured organizations, whose leaders strengthen their power with the help of established rules and norms.

Because charismatic groups are unstable, they usually persist as long as the leaders have magnetic power. However, since leaders are not immortal, rules are formed according to which their successors are chosen. Sooner or later, these followers become convinced that faith alone is not enough to preserve the group for a long time. It also matters how group members earn their living. Often a group solves this problem by taxing its members or selling some product. During the formation of certain rules, methods and traditions, a hierarchy of officials is formed. In this way, a much more orderly organization is formed.

Max Weber called this process the routinization of charisma. This happens in a lot of groups. For example, Ross (1980) studied three organizations that were formed to provide relief to the population of Midwestern cities affected by hurricanes. Although these three groups were different from each other in many respects, it is striking that they went through similar stages before becoming organizations. At the “crystallization” stage, each group comprehended the needs of society and made decisions on measures to satisfy them. There was then a transition to the "recognition" stage, when leaders came into contact with other organizations to discuss their goals and joint efforts; thus they received recognition from others. This led to the third stage, called "institutionalization", when activities began to be carried out in the generally accepted way. By this time, stable forms of interaction are established between group members and with representatives of other organizations. It is interesting to note that as a result of this process, each group became more orderly; to achieve its goals, fewer people were required,

therefore the group became smaller.

When discussing the specifics of moving from a group to an organizational structure, you may have thought that there are many forms of organizations. If so, then you reasoned correctly. One such form is a voluntary association, resembling an informal group; its direct opposite is total organization.

Voluntary associations are common throughout the world. These include religious groups such as the World Zionist Convention or the Women's Christian Union, professional societies such as the American Sociological Association and the American Institute of Planning, and hobby associations such as the Kennel Club or the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Vocal Quartets among Barbers of America. .

A voluntary association has three main features:

1. it is formed to protect the common interests of its members;

2. membership is voluntary - it does not impose requirements on certain people (as is seen in conscription for military service) and it is not assigned at birth (as, for example, citizenship). As a result, leaders have relatively little influence on members of a voluntary association, who have the opportunity to leave the organization if they are not satisfied with the activities of the leaders;

3. This type of organization is not affiliated with local, state, or federal government agencies (Sills, 1968).

Voluntary associations are often created to protect some common interests of its members. Total-type institutions are formed to promote the public good, the essence of which is formulated by state, religious and other organizations. Examples of such institutions are prisons, military schools, etc.

Residents of total institutions are isolated from society. They are often under the supervision of guards. Guards oversee many aspects of their lives, including food, housing, and even personal care. It is not surprising that to maintain order and the dependence of the inhabitants of these establishments on the guards, many regulations are issued. As a result, a strong group of guards and a weak group of those who obey them are formed.

Erwin Goffman (1961), who coined the term “total institutions,” identified several types of such organizations:

1. hospitals, homes and sanatoriums for people who cannot take care of themselves (blind, elderly, poor, sick);

2. prisons (and concentration camps), intended for people considered dangerous to society;

3. military barracks, sea vessels, closed educational institutions, labor camps and other institutions created for specific purposes;

4. monasteries and other refuges where people retreat from the world, usually for religious reasons.

Often, isolation from the outside world is imposed on newcomers to a total institution through complex or harsh rituals. This is done to achieve a complete break between people and their past and conformity to the norms of the institution.

Social institutions.

Another type of social systems is formed on the basis of communities, the social connections of which are determined by associations of organizations. Such social connections are called institutional, and social systems are called social institutions. The latter act on behalf of society as a whole. Institutional connections can also be called normative, since their nature and content are established by society in order to satisfy the needs of its members in certain spheres of public life.

Consequently, social institutions perform the functions of social management and social control in society as one of the elements of management. Social control enables society and its systems to ensure compliance with normative conditions, the violation of which causes damage to the social system. The main objects of such control are legal and moral norms, customs, administrative decisions, etc. The action of social control comes down, on the one hand, to the application of sanctions against behavior that violates social restrictions, and on the other, to the approval of desirable behavior. The behavior of individuals is determined by their needs. These needs can be satisfied in various ways, and the choice of means to satisfy them depends on the value system adopted by a given social community or society as a whole. The adoption of a certain value system contributes to the identity of the behavior of members of the community. Education and socialization are aimed at conveying to individuals the patterns of behavior and methods of activity established in a given community.

Social institutions guide the behavior of community members through a system of sanctions and rewards. In social management and control, institutions play a very important role. Their task comes down to more than just coercion. In every society, there are institutions that guarantee freedom in certain types of activities - freedom of creativity and innovation, freedom of speech, the right to receive a certain form and amount of income, to housing and free medical care, etc. For example, writers and artists have guaranteed freedom creativity, search for new artistic forms; scientists and specialists undertake to investigate new problems and search for new technical solutions, etc. Social institutions can be characterized from the point of view of both their external, formal (“material”) structure and their internal, substantive structure.

Externally, a social institution looks like a collection of persons and institutions, equipped with certain material means and performing a specific social function. On the substantive side, it is a certain system of purposefully oriented standards of behavior for certain individuals in specific situations. Thus, if justice as a social institution can be externally characterized as a set of persons, institutions and material means administering justice, then from a substantive point of view it is a set of standardized patterns of behavior of eligible persons providing this social function. These standards of behavior are embodied in certain roles characteristic of the justice system (the role of a judge, prosecutor, lawyer, investigator, etc.).

The social institution thus determines the orientation of social activity and social relations through a mutually agreed upon system of purposefully oriented standards of behavior. Their emergence and grouping into a system depend on the content of the tasks being solved by the social institution. Each such institution is characterized by the presence of an activity goal, specific functions that ensure its achievement, a set of social positions and roles, as well as a system of sanctions that ensure the encouragement of desired behavior and the suppression of deviant behavior.

The most important social institutions are political. With their help, political power is established and maintained. Economic institutions ensure the process of production and distribution of goods and services. The family is also one of the important social institutions. Its activities (relationships between parents, parents and children, methods of education, etc.) are determined by a system of legal and other social norms. Along with these institutions, socio-cultural institutions such as the education system, healthcare, social security, cultural and educational institutions, etc. are also of significant importance. The institution of religion continues to play a significant role in society.

Institutional connections, like other forms of social connections on the basis of which social communities are formed, represent an ordered system, a certain social organization. This is a system of accepted activities of social communities, norms and values that guarantee similar behavior of their members, coordinate and direct the aspirations of people in a certain direction, establish ways to satisfy their needs, resolve conflicts that arise in the process of everyday life, and ensure a state of balance between the aspirations of different individuals and groups of a given social community and society as a whole. In the case when this balance begins to fluctuate, they speak of social disorganization, the intense manifestation of undesirable phenomena (for example, crimes, alcoholism, aggressive actions, etc.).

The three basic features we just looked at—interaction, membership, and group identity—are common to many groups. Two lovers, three comrades who go fishing together on weekends, a bridge club, scouts, an association for the production of computers - they are all groups. But a group consisting of two lovers or three comrades is fundamentally different from a brigade, which installs a computer, sitting at one table. Lovers and friends form primary groups; computer assembly group - secondary.

Primary group consists of a small number of people between whom relationships are established based on their individual characteristics. Primary groups are not large, because otherwise it is difficult to establish direct, personal relationships between all members.

Charles Cooley (1909) first introduced the concept of the primary group in relation to the family, between whose members stable emotional relationships develop. According to Cooley, the family is considered "primary" because it is the first group to play a major role in the socialization process of infants. Subsequently, sociologists began to use this term when studying any group in which close personal relationships have formed that define the essence of this group. Thus, lovers, groups of friends, club members who not only play bridge together, but also go to visit each other, are primary groups.

Secondary group is formed from people between whom there are almost no emotional relationships; their interaction is determined by the desire to achieve certain goals. In these groups, the main importance is attached not to personal qualities, but to the ability to perform certain functions. At a computer production enterprise, the positions of clerk, manager, courier, engineer, and administrator can be held by any person with appropriate training. If the people in these positions do their job well, the organization can function. The individual characteristics of each person mean almost nothing to the organization and, conversely, members of a family or group of players are unique. Their personal qualities play an important role; none can be replaced by someone else.

Because roles in a secondary group are clearly defined, its members often know very little about each other. As a rule, they do not hug when they meet. They do not develop the emotional relationships that are typical for friends and family members. In an organization related to labor activity, industrial relations are the main ones. Thus, not only the roles, but also the modes of communication are clearly defined. Since face-to-face conversation is not effective, communication is often more formal and carried out through written documents or telephone calls.

However, one should not exaggerate the certain impersonality of secondary groups, supposedly devoid of originality. People form friendships and form new groups at work, at school, and within other secondary groups. If sufficiently stable relationships develop between the individuals participating in communication, we can assume that they have created a new primary group.

PRIMARY GROUPS IN MODERN SOCIETY

Over the past two hundred years, social science theorists have noted the weakening role of primary groups in society. They believe that the Industrial Revolution, urban development, and the rise of corporations led to the creation of large, impersonal bureaucracies. To characterize these trends, concepts such as “mass society” and “decline of the community” were introduced.

But sociological research conducted over several decades shows the complexity of these issues. Indeed, in the modern world there is a dominance of secondary groups. But at the same time, the primary group turned out to be quite stable and became an important link between the individual and the more formal, organizational side of life. Primary group research is concentrated in several areas. Let's start with an analysis of the role of primary groups in industry.

Industry

Disasters

Social control: Chinese example

Section 1 The main components of society.

Chapter 5: Social Interaction

INDUSTRY

Sixty years ago, a group of social researchers studied the behavior of workers at the giant Hawthorne plant, operated by the Western Electric Company in Chicago. Scientists sought to determine the factors affecting labor productivity and individual output of workers. For example, they believed that the number of breaks at work affected productivity. So, they selected a group of female workers and began the experiment. At first, female workers were given the opportunity to take several long rests during the working day, then the rest periods were reduced but became more frequent. The experimenters also shortened and lengthened the time allowed for lunch. In addition, the lighting was increased to varying degrees; It was assumed that brighter lighting would improve performance.

The results of the experiment surprised the researchers. When they lengthened rest periods, female workers' productivity increased. While contracting, it continued to grow. But when the initial work-rest regime was established, labor productivity increased even more. The same thing was observed in experiments involving changes in lunch duration and lighting brightness. With any changes, women's production levels increased.

Having received these results, the researchers tried to identify other factors (besides working conditions) that affected productivity. It turned out that the women chosen to conduct the experiment formed a group. It seemed to them that because they were the ones who were selected, they acquired a special status, and they began to consider each other as representatives of a kind of “elite”. Therefore, we tried to work as best as possible in accordance with the requirements of the researchers. This type of response came to be called Hawthorne effect. It was as follows: it is likely that the very fact that a given group is being studied influences the behavior of its members even more than other factors that researchers seek to identify.

Based on this experiment and other data, the Hawthorne researchers concluded that the “human factor” plays an important role in work activity. When a worker acquired a new status associated with monetary reward, praise, or promotion, his productivity increased rapidly. This was also facilitated by an effective complaints response system. If a worker has the opportunity to discuss a problem with a patient boss who will listen with empathy and respect, and if things then change for the better, workers' trust in management, their sense of self-worth, and their desire for group unity increase.

The Hawthorne experimenters also identified the beneficial role of small, clearly organized groups of women workers. Members of such groups often sought to start fuss, jokes, and games. After work they played baseball, cards, and visited each other. And these primary groups were able to influence the productivity of the entire plant. Despite management's attempts to control output by setting standards, these groups themselves informally regulated the pace of work. Those who worked too quickly (they were called "upstarts") were subject to social pressure from the group - they were teased, ridiculed or ignored. Often this pressure was so strong that workers deliberately worked slower and refused bonuses for exceeding production standards (Roethlisberger and Dixon, 1947).

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