Noise

From the Nobel Prize-winning author of ;Thinking Fast and Slow ;and ;the coauthor of ;Nudge ;a revolutionary exploration of why people make bad judgments and how to make better ones—a tour de force” (New York Times). ;Imagine that two doctors in the same city give different diagnoses to identical patients—or that two judges in the same courthouse give ;markedly ;different sentences to people who have committed the same crime. Suppose that different interviewers at the same firm ;make different decisions about ;indistinguishable job applicants—or that when a company is handling customer complaints the resolution depends on who happens to ;answer ;the ;phone. Now imagine that the same doctor the same judge the same interviewer or the same ;customer service agent ;makes different decisions depending on whether it is morning or afternoon or Monday rather than Wednesday. These are examples of noise: variability in judgments that should be identical. ;In ;Noise Daniel Kahneman Olivier Sibony and Cass R. Sunstein ;show ;the ;detrimental effects of noise ;in many fields including medicine law ;economic forecasting forensic science bail child protection strategy performance reviews and personnel selection. ;Wherever there is judgment there is noise. Yet ;most of the time individuals and organizations alike ;are unaware of it. They neglect noise. With a few simple remedies people can reduce both noise and bias and so make far better decisions. ;Packed with original ideas and offering the same kinds of ;research-based ;insights that made ;Thinking Fast and Slow ;and ;Nudge ;groundbreaking ;New York Times ;bestsellers ;Noise ;explains how and why humans are so susceptible to noise in judgment—and what we can do about it.