The Daily Stat from Harvard Business Review

 

February 18, 2015 Why You Should Be Careful About How You Present Performance Metrics If research participants were informed that their error rate on a task was 5%, compared with an unseen other person's score of 2%, they rated their own performance more poorly than if they were told their success rate was 95% and the other person's was 98% – even though the two statements convey exactly the same information. That's because the difference between 5 and 2 looms much larger in people's minds than the difference between 95 and 98, say Jessica Y.Y. Kwong of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Kin Fai Ellick Wong of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. People don't interpret numbers objectively; instead they base their opinions on how numbers make them "feel," the research shows. SOURCE: Fair or Not Fair? The Effects of Numerical Framing on the Perceived Justice of Outcomes

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