Momentum, Human Nature, and the Bandwagon Effect

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74 – June, 2021

By Wayne Cavanaugh

A newly released book, Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment, by Nobel winning author Daniel Kahneman, is a terrific read that speaks to human judgement inconsistencies that are impacted by what the author calls “noise.” He isn’t talking about audio noise. Instead, he means the silent “noise” in our brain, which is a product of external factors and human nature that greatly impact “unwanted variability in judgments.” I can’t but wonder how much this kind of noise affects the decisions of dog show judges, subconscioulsy or not.

Kahneman explains that in the legal world, a study of 1.5 million cases found that when federal court judges pass down sentences on days after their favorite football team lost, they tend to be tougher than on days following a win. He presents many similar examples in everything from large variances in pricing estimates from insurance company underwriters depending on the weather, to doctors who are more likely to order cancer screenings for patients they see earlier in the day compared to later in the afternoon. What kinds of factors may unknowingly alter a dog show judge’s decision in the ring?

Again, these are not irrational, conscious judgements; they are human nature judgements. What if a dog show judge’s favorite team just had won a big game, let’s say the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame? She’s on cloud nine as she walks into the sporting group, sunshine dances on the coat of a beautiful, deep mahogany Irish Setter, and the setter looks up at her and wags his tail. Can that subconscious noise give that dog an edge on the day? I have no idea. Kahneman can study that one. But after reading his book, I can’t help but wonder what kinds of “noise” may affect who gets the rosettes.

Sometimes we treasure the variability of human nature, especially in artistic tastes, picking friends, and I’d suggest, in dog show judging. Even the best judge’s decisions can be more variable than they think because of the influence of noise. In my opinion, that kind of variability is a good thing in our sport. If judges were replaced by some kind of computerized algorithms, and the same dogs won every time, the sport would fold. The author’s argument, however, is that we’ve allowed too much noise to affect decisions at too high a cost. I’m not sure about that. Instead, the answer in the case of our sport just might be somewhere in the middle.

Click here to read the complete article
74 – June, 2021

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Posted by AnthonyA on Jun 6 2021. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.