From Kahneman’s “Noise”
What Kind of People Make Better Judgements?
- “Judgments are both less noisy and less biased when those who make them are well trained, are more intelligent, and have the right cognitive style. In other words: good judgments depend on what you know, how well you think, and how you think. Good judges tend to be experienced and smart, but they also tend to be actively open-minded and willing to learn from new information.” (p. 210)
- “GMA predicts both occupational level attained and performance within one’s chosen occupation and does so better than any other ability, trait, or disposition and better than job experience.” Of course, other cognitive abilities matter too (more on this later). So do many personality traits—including conscientiousness and grit, defined as perseverance and passion in the pursuit of long-term goals.” (p. 213)
- “Yet for all its crudeness and limitations, GMA, as measured by standardized tests containing questions on verbal, quantitative, and spatial problems, remains by far the best single predictor of important outcomes.” (p. 214)
- “If you must pick people to make judgments, picking those with the highest mental ability makes a lot of sense.” (p. 215)
- People with a certain Cognitive Style have better judgement. People who score high on the Cognitive Reflection Test, Need For Cognition Scale, Adult Decision Making Competence scale, Halpern Critical Thinking Assessment.
“People who score well on the Adult Decision Making Competence scale or on the Halpern assessment seem to make better judgments in life:” (p. 217) - “Intelligence is only part of the story, however. How people think is also important. Perhaps we should pick the most thoughtful, open-minded person, rather than the smartest one.” (p. 219)
What Kind of People Make Better Forecasters?
- People who are actively open minded. “The only measure of cognitive style or personality that they found to predict forecasting performance was another scale, developed by psychology professor Jonathan Baron to measure “actively open-minded thinking.” (p. 217)
- “To be actively open-minded is to actively search for information that contradicts your preexisting hypotheses. Such information includes the dissenting opinions of others and the careful weighting of new evidence against old beliefs.” (p. 217)