THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Wherever there is human judgment, there is Noise.
From the bestselling author of Thinking, Fast and Slow, the co-author of Nudge, and the author of You Are About to Make a Terrible Mistake! comes Noise, a groundbreaking exploration of why people make bad judgments, and how through controlling both noise and cognitive bias, you can make better ones.
‘Noise may be the most important book I’ve read in more than a decade. A masterpiece’
Angela Duckworth, author of Grit
‘Get ready for some of the world’s greatest minds to help you rethink how you evaluate people, make decisions, and solve problems’
Adam Grant, author of Think Again and host of the TED podcast WorkLife
‘A masterful achievement and a landmark in the field of psychology’
Philip E. Tetlock, coauthor of Superforecasting
‘An electrifying exploration of the human mind, this book will permanently change the way we think about the scale and scope of bias’
David Lammy, MP for Tottenham and author of Tribes
BUY THE BOOK
Imagine that two doctors in the same city give different diagnoses to identical patients — or that two judges in the same court give different sentences to people who have committed the same crime. Suppose that different food inspectors give different ratings to indistinguishable restaurants — or that when a company is handling customer complaints, the resolution depends on who happens to be handling the particular complaint. Now imagine that the same doctor, the same judge, the same inspector, or the same company official make 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 how noise helps produce errors in many fields, including medicine, law, public health, economic forecasting, food safety, forensic science, bail verdicts, child protection, strategy, performance reviews and personnel selection. And although noise can be found wherever people make judgments and decisions, individuals and organizations alike commonly ignore to its role in their judgments and in their actions. They show “noise neglect.” With a few simple remedies, people can reduce both noise and bias, and so make far better decisions.
Packed with new ideas, and drawing on the same kind of diligent, insightful research that made Thinking, Fast and Slow and Nudge groundbreaking New York Times and international bestsellers, Noise explains how and why humans are so susceptible to noise in judgment — and what we can do about it.
‘Noise completes a trilogy that started with Thinking, Fast and Slow and Nudge. Together, they highlight what all leaders need to know to improve their own decisions, and more importantly, to improve decisions throughout their organizations’
Max H. Bazerman, author of Better, Not Perfect
‘This important book shows us why noise matters, why there’s so much more of it than we realize, and how to reduce it. Implementing their advice would give us more profitable businesses, healthier citizens, a fairer legal system, and happier lives’
Jonathan Haidt, NYU Stern School of Business
DANIEL KAHNEMAN is the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology, Princeton University, Professor of Public Affairs, the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, and the winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences and the National Medal of Freedom in 2013. Kahneman is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society, the Society of Experimental Psychologists, and the Econometric Society. He has been the recipient of numerous awards, among them the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the American Psychological Association, the Warren Medal of the Society of Experimental Psychologists, and Hilgard Award for Career Contributions to General Psychology, and the Award for Lifetime Contributions to Psychology from the American Psychological Association. He is the author of New York Times bestseller Thinking, Fast and Slow. He lives in New York City.
OLIVIER SIBONY is Professor of Strategy and Business Policy at HEC Paris. Previously, he spent 25 years in the Paris and New York offices of McKinsey & Company, where he was a senior partner. Sibony’s research on improving the quality of strategic decision making has been featured in many publications, including Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review. He is a graduate of HEC Paris and hold a PhD from Paris Sciences et Lettres University. He is the author of You’re About to Make a Terrible Mistake!
CASS R. SUNSTEIN is the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard, where he is founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy. From 2009 to 2012, he was Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. From 2013 to 2014, he served on President Obama’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies. Winner of the 2018 Holberg Prize from the government of Norway, Sunstein is author of many articles and books, including two New York Times bestsellers: The World According to Star Wars and Nudge (with Richard H. Thaler). His other books include How Change Happens and Too Much Information. @casssunstein
MEDIA HIGHLIGHTS
Observer Interview – Daniel Kahneman: ‘Clearly AI is going to win. How people are going to adjust is a fascinating problem’
New York Times Book Review – “A tour de force of scholarship and clear writing.”
New York Times Guest Essay – Bias Is a Big Problem. But So Is ‘Noise.’
Wall Street Journal – Read an excerpt from the book “Good Moods Often Lead to Bad Judgments”
Psychology Today – interview with Daniel Kahneman “What We’re Imperfect Judges”
WorkLife with Adam Grant – Taken for Granted: Daniel Kahneman Doesn’t Trust Your Intuition
Lunch with the FT – Daniel Kahneman: ‘Everything I’ve done has been collaborative
3 Takeaways Podcast – Nobel Laureate, Daniel Kahneman: His Latest Findings on “Noise” and Flaws in Human Judgement
NPR Planet Money – How To Make Job Interviews Less Horrible
MEDIA INQUIRIES
For US media inquiries, please contact:
Juliana.Horbachevsky@hbgusa.com
For UK media inquiries, please contact:
Katherine.Patrick@HarperCollins.co.uk
