Noise

NOISE: A Flaw in Human Judgment

by Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, & Cass R. Sunstein

Human judgments—from forecasts to performance evaluations and forensics analyses—are inconsistent and inaccurate. Given the same context and information, different people will make different judgments or decisions. Such inconsistencies come from 2 things: noise and bias. This book explores the concept of noise—the random variability and inconsistencies in judgment which lead people to evaluate the same information differently.

In this summary, you’ll learn:
• What is system noise and how it affects all types of decisions, from personal to professional judgments, individual to group decisions, and private sector to public sector;
• The difference between noise and bias, the components of system noise, how to evaluate the quality of judgments and measure noise;
• A range of strategies for reducing noise, including: how to do noise audits, find good judges, use de-biasing, and adopt various preventive decision hygiene strategies;
• Understand the problems and limits to noise reduction, and how we can consider the “right” level of noise to accept.

Who should read this:
• Anyone who’s interested in psychology, behavioral economics, and organizational behavior
• Decision-makers such as business executives, professionals, and policy-makers