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.
