People are, on the whole, poor at considering background information when making individual decisions. At first glance this might seem like a strength that (1)______ the ability to make judgments which are unbiased by (2)______ factors. But Dr. Uri Simonsohn speculated that an inability to consider the big (3)______ was leading decision-makers to be biased by the daily samples of information they were working with. (4)______, he theorised that a judge (5)______ of appearing too soft (6)______ crime might be more likely to send someone to prison (7)______ he had already sentenced five or six other defendants only to forced community service on that day.
To (9)______ this idea, he turned to the university-admissions process. In theory, the (8)______ of an applicant should not depend on the few others (10)______ randomly for interview during the same day, but Dr. Simonsohn suspected the truth was (11)______.
He studied the results of 9,323 MBA interviews (12)______ by 31 admissions officers. The interviewers had (13)______ applicants on a scale of one to five. This scale (14)______ numerous factors into consideration. The scores were (15)______ used in conjunction with an applicant’s score on the Graduate Management Admission Test, or GMAT, a standardised exam which is (16)______ out of 800 points, to make a decision on whether to accept him or her.
Dr. Simonsohn found if the score of the previous candidate in a daily series of interviewees was 0.75 points or more higher than that of the one (17)______ that, then the score for the next applicant would (18)______ by an average of 0.075 points. This might sound small, but to (19)______ the effects of such a decrease a candidate could need 30 more GMAT points than would otherwise have been (20)______.
