The Accuracy of Human Judgement

Course Description: We all make judgments about what is true or false, probable or improbable. Additionally, we all use these judgments to inform important decisions: who to marry, what career to pursue, where to live, what medications to take, which theories to accept and who to trust, to take a few of countlessly many example. What differentiates us, however, is how accurate these judgments are: research has shown that some individuals and groups are much more accurate than others, and you might be surprised at which variables do (or do not) correlate with this accuracy.

In this course, we will investigate how to understand, measure and improve the accuracy of human judgment. Topics covered include the following: the concept and measurement of judgmental accuracy, studies assessing judgmental accuracy across various domains, the accuracy of our metacognition (that is, of our thoughts about our thoughts), heuristics as potential causes of inaccuracy, evolutionary explanations of the inaccuracy of human judgment and studies revealing means by which to potentially improve the accuracy of our judgments. We will also explore applications to real-world contexts, including law, medicine, geopolitics and the concept of “expertise”.