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.
