I found it rather interesting: Hawthorne Effect

An increase in worker productivity produced by the psychological stimulus of being singled out and made to feel important.

I have no way of verifying this effect, yet. However, personally I do believe that individuals are indeed affected by the group behavior. Hence it is manager’s responsibility to create his desired norm for the group. Well, how to create it is also a responsibility.

If a manager announce that performance evaluation is going to be carried out, will the performance of the team improve during the next few months? It would be really interesting to find out the answer. Will people act differently for better performance evaluation result? I don’t know, but I think the way we carry out the evaluation do have some effect on people’s reaction. If they feel positive, the performance will surely improved. But if they feel offensive, we might not get what we desire.

I’m interested in seeing what the result will be.

You can find a more elaborate paper here: The Hawthorne, Pygmalion, placebo and other effects of expectation: some notes