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.
