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Elton Mayo

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Elton Mayo

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Also known as George Elton Mayo

Australian psychologist and sociologist

Person · Open Library

Born
1880
Died
1949
Works
17

Top works

  • [The human problems of an industrial civilization
  • Rehabilitation: the man and the job
  • Group tensions in industry ...
  • Democracy and freedom
  • Probleme industrieller Arbeitsbedingungen

via Open Library + Wikidata

Music · MusicBrainz

Type
Person
Country
GB
Active from
1947-03-25

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Quotes

  • What social and industrial research has not sufficiently realised as yet is that... minor irrationalities of the “average normal” person are cumulative in their effect. They may not cause “breakdown” in the individual but they do cause “breakdown” in the industry.
  • One friend, one person who is truly understanding, who takes the trouble to listen to us as we consider our problem, can change our whole outlook on the world.
  • The recent growth of interest in political matters in Australia is by no means a sign of social health.
  • So long as commerce specializes in business methods which take no account of human nature and social motives, so long may we expect strikes and sabotage to be the ordinary accompaniment of industry. Sabotage is essentially a protest of the human spirit against dull mechanism. And the emphasis which democracy places upon political methods tends to transform mere sporadic acts of sabotage into an organized conspiracy against society.
  • Acting in collaboration with the National Research Council, the Western Electric Company had for three years been engaged upon an attempt to assess the effect of illumination upon the worker and his work.
  • It had become clear that the itemized changes experimentally imposed, although they could perhaps be used to account for minor differences between one period and another, yet could not be used to explain the major change - the continually increasing production. This steady increase as represented by all the contemporary records seemed to ignore the experimental changes in its upward development.

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

Key facts

Born
George Elton Mayo , ( 1880-12-26 ) 26 December 1880, Adelaide , Australia
Died
7 September 1949 (1949-09-07) (aged 68), Surrey , UK
Known for
human relations movement
Spouse
Dorothea McConnel ​ ( married</span>"}]]}'>m. 1913 ) ​
Relatives
Helen Mayo (sister), Herbert Mayo (brother), George Mayo (grandfather)
Education
University of Adelaide , University of Edinburgh (attended)
Institutions
University of Queensland , University of Pennsylvania , Harvard University

via Wikipedia infobox

~13 min read

Encyclopedic overview

George Elton Mayo (26 December 1880 – 7 September 1949) was an Australian-born psychologist, industrial researcher, and organizational theorist. Mayo was formally trained at the University of Adelaide, acquiring a Bachelor of Arts Degree graduating with First Class Honours, majoring in philosophy and psychology, and was later awarded an honorary Master of Arts Degree from the University of Queensland (UQ).

While in Queensland, Mayo served on the University's war committee and pioneered research into the psychoanalytic treatment of shell-shock. As a psychologist Mayo often helped soldiers returning from World War I recover from the stresses of war and with a Brisbane physician, pioneered the psychoanalytic treatment of shell-shock and conducted psycho-pathological tests. He was a lecturer in psychology and mental philosophy at the UQ between 1911 and 1922, when he sailed to the United States. In 1926 he was appointed to the Harvard Business School (HBS) as a professor of industrial research.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Elton Mayo” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.