A Preliminary Examination of the Effects of Observer Presence on Work-Related Behavior in a Simulated Office

Abstract

The current study evaluated the effects of prolonged observer presence on individuals' work-related behavior within sessions and across sessions. Participants were three undergraduate students who transcribed articles at a computer workstation in a simulated office setting. Overall, participants demonstrated increases and decreases in their work-related behavior in the presence of an observer. The demonstration of spontaneous recovery suggests that those decreases were due to fatigue, not habituation. Although limitations exist in the current study, this study represents an initial step toward examining behavioral habituation in humans to prolonged observer presence. Future researchers are encouraged to conduct analog studies with more participants, and various observer presence schedules, to determine whether performance changes to direct observation are habituation, fatigue, attention-related changes, or some other confound.

Keywords:

• reactivity
• habituation
• fatigue
• observer
• direct observation

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to express gratitude to the action editor, Mark Alavosius, and the reviewers for their insightful feedback. They also extend a special thank you to Keith Ruckstuhl for his assistance with the development of the Visual Basic Editor macro utilized in this research study.