Quotes About Evaluation

It was one of the greatest errors in evaluating dictatorship to say that the dictator forces himself on society against its own will. In reality, every dictator in history was nothing but the accentuation of already existing state ideas which he had only to exaggerate in order to gain power

It's easy to see the faults in people, I know; and it's harder to see the good. Especially when the good isn't there.

Whenever we can replace human judgment by a formula, we should at least consider it.

Scientists in diverse disciplines were quick to adopt the least squares method. Over two centuries later, it remains the standard way to evaluate errors wherever achieving accuracy is the goal.

When Vul and Pashler let three weeks pass before asking their subjects the same question again, the benefit rose to one-third the value of a second opinion.

Evaluation on the GOOD–BAD dimension is an automatic operation of System 1

premortem. The procedure is simple: when the organization has almost come to an important decision but has not formally committed itself, Klein proposes gathering for a brief session a group of individuals who are knowledgeable about the decision. The premise of the session is a short speech: "Imagine that we are a year into the future. We implemented the plan as it now exists. The outcome was a disaster. Please take 5 to 10 minutes to write a brief history of that disaster.

Judgment can therefore be described as measurement in which the instrument is a human mind.

The question that the executive faced (should I invest in Ford stock?) was difficult, but the answer to an easier and related question (do I like Ford cars?) came readily to his mind and determined his choice. This is the essence of intuitive heuristics: when faced with a difficult question, we often answer an easier one instead, usually without noticing the substitution.

Subjective confidence in a judgment is not a reasoned evaluation of the probability that this judgment is correct. Confidence is a feeling, which reflects the coherence of the information and the cognitive ease of processing it. It is wise to take admissions of uncertainty seriously, but declarations of high confidence mainly tell you that an individual has constructed a coherent story in his mind, not necessarily that the story is true.

the prediction of the future is not distinguished from an evaluation of current evidence—prediction matches evaluation. This is perhaps the best evidence we have for the role of substitution.

Subjective confidence in a judgment is not a reasoned evaluation of the probability that this judgment is correct.

In areas that involve vague criteria and complex judgments, intrarater reliability, as it is called, can be poor.

Imagine that we are a year into the future. We implemented the plan as it now exists. The outcome was a disaster. Please take 5 to 10 minutes to write a brief history of that disaster.

People don't choose between things, they choose between descriptions of things.

How closely does System 2 monitor the suggestions of System 1? His reasoning was that we know a significant fact about anyone who says that the ball costs 10¢: that person did not actively check whether the answer was correct, and her System 2 endorsed an intuitive answer that it could have rejected with a small investment of effort.

Some judgments are biased; they are systematically off target. Other judgments are noisy, as people who are expected to agree end up at very different points around the target. Many organizations, unfortunately, are afflicted by both bias and noise.

skill in evaluating the business prospects of a firm is not sufficient for successful stock trading, where the key question is whether the information about the firm is already incorporated in the price of its stock. Traders apparently lack the skill to answer this crucial question, but they appear to be ignorant of their ignorance.

If it is the only one that comes to mind, it may be subjectively undistinguishable from valid judgments that you make with expert confidence. This is why subjective confidence is not a good diagnostic of accuracy: judgments that answer the wrong question can also be made with high confidence

The premortem is not a panacea and does not provide complete protection against nasty surprises, but it goes some way toward reducing the damage of plans that are subject to the biases of WYSIATI and uncritical optimism.

predictive judgments that provide input—for instance, how a candidate will perform in her first year, how the stock market will respond to a given strategic move, or how quickly the epidemic will spread if left unchecked. But the final decisions entail trade-offs between the pros and cons of various options, and these trade-offs are resolved by evaluative judgments.

In the competition with the inside view, the outside view doesn't stand a chance.

Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from zero at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?

When the handsome and confident speaker bounds onto the stage, for example, you can anticipate that the audience will judge his comments more favorably than he deserves. The availability of a diagnostic label for this bias—the halo effect—makes it easier to anticipate, recognize, and understand.