Error of judgment

This article deals with the error of judgment in psychology; on the errors of assessment in administrative law, see margin of appreciation .

Error of assessment in the psychology those errors involved in the assessment of facts , situations , objects or particular persons occur.

General

Participants in an assessment are the assessor ( assessor ) and the assessment object (facts, people). The result of any assessment can be falsified by assessment errors. Every judge tends to have certain tendencies towards judgment, from which judgment errors can arise. Assessment errors are based on subjective influences ( feelings , values , wishes , ideas , expectations ) or a lack or lack of professional competence on the part of the assessor, which flow into each assessment process to a greater or lesser extent. Each assessment is thus more or less subjectively shaped by the assessor. Assessment errors have an unconscious and therefore uncontrolled effect on the assessment process and on the assessment result.

Assessment errors begin in the assessment process with the missing or incorrect perception of the object to be assessed ( perception error ), for example through selective perception of the assessor, continue with the missing or incorrect application of the assessment criteria and end with the incorrect application of the judgment dimension. A lack of professional competence also results in an assessment error. Most common in the are literature , the error of assessment in the evaluation of persons ( students through school records , with workers in the private sector through performance appraisal or employee evaluation at; officers and soldiers by official assessment , for all workers by job references ) or athletes by sports scores discussed. They are discussed in the following, they can be applied analogously to the assessment of facts, situations, etc.

species

A distinction is made between the following assessment errors:

• Personality-related assessment errors have their origin in the personality of the assessor:
  • Projection errors : The assessor's own abilities , intentions and characteristics are assigned to those to be assessed, so that those assessed with similar characteristics get away more favorably than those assessed without them.
  • Prejudices : If the assessor incorporates pronounced and not thoroughly examined positive or negative judgments or attitudes about the person to be assessed into his assessment, the assessment result will be falsified positively or negatively.
  • Sympathy / antipathy : Sympathy and antipathy themselves are not yet assessment errors, but only when they create a perception filter for the assessor. Existing sympathies then lead to the fact that positive characteristics of the assessed person are reinforced and negative characteristics are less weighted or not considered. The opposite is true for antipathy.
  • First impression : The first impression that an appraiser gets of the appraised person often forms a pictorial image of the whole essence of the appraised person and blocks the perception of the required overall picture.
  • Logical errors ("errors due to an implicit personality theory ") refer to incorrect deductions and / or transfers to the person to be assessed. So gifted students usually have no special school problems, but this does not apply to all. An implicit personality theory enables the judge to infer another trait. Certain personality traits always seem to occur together or to condition each other (“He who lies, also steals”).
  • The mildness-hardship error describes a systematic over- or under-assessment of an aspect, whereby the classifications of several characteristics are systematically negative or positive.
• Distortions of perception arise during the acquisition and processing of information by the assessor. Due to a (physiologically conditioned) limited absorption and processing capacity, for quantitative reasons, not all stimuli to which an assessor is exposed can be perceived.
  • Halo effect : the overall impression or an individual observation outshine other possibly positive or negative features.
  • Primary effect (Primacy effect): The first perceived benefits characterize the image in memory of the assessor and be overvalued against future / current performance.
  • Rezenzeffekt (Nikolaus-effect): Recently past achievements stick best in the memory of the assessor and are overrated compared to long past achievements.
  • In terms of the hierarchy effect , the higher levels tend to be rated better, while lower levels tend to be rated worse. Through selective perception, individual processes are perceived more strongly and weighted more heavily in the assessment .
• Falsified assessments exist when the assessor consciously manipulates his judgment. The appraisal object is depicted better or worse contrary to reality. In the case of sympathy, this can lead to favoring intentions (unjustified promotions) or, in the case of antipathies, to intentions to harm . In human resources, there is "praise", the "courtesy assessment " or bullying with the help of assessments.
• Procedural errors and social environment : Incorrect or incomplete assessment criteria and insufficient or missing training of the assessors prevent a complete or fair assessment. The Gaussian normal distribution assumes that most people are of average talent and ability, only a few have extremely good or extremely poor skills. This normal distribution has the effect of a tendency towards the middle in companies , although not all employees only have average characteristics, but rather have individual contours that must be taken into account.

It is crucial that these assessment errors occur even by trained assessors with professional competence. If there is even a lack of professional competence, an assessment is worthless, it is a systematic error .

consequences

Even the same facts or situations are sometimes assessed differently by several assessors (“two lawyers - two opinions”). Causes are different professional competence and / or occurring assessment errors. Since most assessments trigger secondary effects because they are the basis for a transfer ( pupil ), promotion or demotion ( human resources ) or victory or defeat ( athletes ), assessment errors have serious effects.

literature

• Reiner Prüß, personnel management. Personnel assessment in theory and practice , Grinn-Verlag, 2012,
• Philip G. Zimbardo, Psychology , Pearson Studies, 2003.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Wolfgang Mentzel / Svenja Grotzfeld / Christine Haub, employee talks , 2010, p. 188
2. ↑ Wolfgang Mentzel / Svenja Grotzfeld / Christine Haub, employee talks , 2010, pp. 188 ff.
3. ↑ Karla Kämmer (Ed.), Pflegemanagement in Altenpflegeeinrichtungen , 2015, p. 263 f.
4. ↑ Lee J Cronbach, Processes affecting scores on "understanding of others" and "assumed similarity" , in: Psychological Bulletin, vol. 52, 1955, pp. 177-193
5. ↑ Manfred Tücke, Psychologie in der Schule, Psychologie für die Schule , 2005, p. 346