Understanding the structural differences in severity and leniency among professional judges. 3 mins read.
In any professional field, we encounter individuals who are systematically more severe or more lenient than their peers. Level noise represents this permanent, personal variance in baseline judgment. For example, in a corporate setting, one manager might consistently rate employees harshly, while another manager in the same department gives glowing reviews for identical performance. This difference does not stem from temporary mood swings, but from stable, deeply ingrained differences in their personal standards.
Level noise is highly problematic because it creates an unfair lottery for those subject to the decisions. When an organization fails to calibrate its experts, the outcome of an evaluation depends entirely on the luck of the draw. Addressing level noise requires systematic calibration audits, where different decision-makers are presented with the same case studies to align their standards and reduce the spread of their baseline judgments.
Primary Source
Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, and Cass R. Sunstein, Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment, Chapter 5 (2021).
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