If You Say Something Is “Likely,” How Likely Do People Think It Is?
2018
People use imprecise words to describe the chance of events all the time — “It’s likely to rain,” or “There’s a real possibility they’ll launch before us,” or “It’s doubtful the nurses will strike.” Not only are such probabilistic terms subjective, but they also can have widely different interpretations. One person’s “pretty likely” is another’s “far from certain.”
Sherman Kent mapped the relationship between words and probabilities. In the best-known version, he showed sentences that included probabilistic words or phrases to about two dozen military officers from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and asked them to translate the words into numbers. These individuals were used to reading intelligence reports. The officers reached a consensus for some words, but their interpretations were all over the place for others.
The authors in this study did another survey with an increase in the size of the sample, and with individuals outside of the intelligence and scientific communities. Their findings were similar, and they make three suggestions for improving our estimation and communication of probabilities.
If You Say Something Is “Likely,” How Likely Do People Think It Is?
Source:
Mauboussin A, Mauboussin MJ. If You Say Something Is “Likely,” How Likely Do People Think It Is? Harvard Business Review 2018; Jul 3. https://hbr.org/2018/07/if-you-say-something-is-likely-how-likely-do-people-think-it-is
Not open access.