NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 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.
