We judge things all the time, subconsciously and consciously. When we eat something we ask ourselves “is this nice?”. When it’s raining outside we might judge that the weather is terrible. When a judgement is broadcast publicly, we call it a “review”.
Judgements have consequences. If you judge death as a bad thing you will fear it. If you judge death as inescapable and fully accept it so, you won’t fear it. Your judgements affect your emotions. These kind of judgements might get a post of their own, they certainly deserve one.
Likewise, reviews also have consequences. Review platforms such as Google Reviews, Trivago and IMDB are nothing more than an average of individuals’ judgements about particular restaurants, hotels or films. These platforms are one way in which we stamp subjective things with a semi-objective score.
How Reviews Work
Star or out-of-ten systems are the most common forms of review. Most people stop after this step, not having the time to write out a complete account of their experience. It’s exactly this simplicity that gives the system merit. More people are likely to leave a review if it’s easy to do. Thus the star rating becomes more useful because Central Limit Theorem becomes more relevant as more people rate things.
Let’s start with an example of how reviews influence decisions. Say you visit a restaurant, Restaurant Examplia, and order the cheeseburger. Your cheeseburger is not as you expected. You give the restaurant a 2 star review. Now, someone else is looking for a place to eat. They begin looking at some reviews. They see Restaurant Examplia has several 2 star reviews (from other people not liking the cheeseburger). You were the first to ever review this restaurant. The restaurant is not necessarily a 2 star restaurant, there’s too much variation. Basically, a single review is only reflective of that one person’s experience and is very unlikely to be reflective of the restaurant as a whole.
The power in a review platform is in the number of people that leave reviews. Most people check the total star rating, if the price to star ratio is good enough and that there’s nothing alarming in the first few written reviews before entering. That star rating is an average of visitors’ ratings. That is what makes it more reliable than an individual review. This may seem like an obvious statement, but consider what is more valuable to a potential patron: a) A single review by Matt Preston (a food critic). b) 100 reviews from different, regular people. Statistics tells us that a sample mean (a single review) from a distribution with less variation is more likely to be equal to that of the population mean (how good the restaurant is on a total average). Matt Preston, while an authority in the field, and someone who is likely to balance his biases better than the average diner, cannot account for the fact that he has innate taste preferences and thus cannot reduce the variability to a reliable level.
What about more subtle art forms like music, dancing or film?
We’re less likely to go looking at what everyone else thinks is best before taking action when it comes to these art forms. Yet there are databases recording popular opinions. There must be some use for them.
Does popular opinion matter in these art forms? “No! Not that many people listen to my music but it’s certainly better than that trash on the radio.” I hear you say. This is where we link back to the previous post. While the psychological layer of subjectivity is higher than that of our biological and physiological selves, it does not mean that we, human beings, have nothing in common psychologically. The album Sounds of Chalk on a Blackboardwill never top the charts; Michael Jackson consistently topped the charts. It’s no accident. Sure, a percentage of MJ’s success can be attributed to some social proof bias, however, he had to become popular to begin with. There’s just something about his music that struck a chord with hundreds of millions of people.
If a song, movie, artwork is popular, it does not mean you will like it. It just means there is a greater chance that you will. A popular piece of art is only “better” at being more popular. Ultimately, the decision for “best” artwork is up to each and every person. Write your reviews, it may not help everyone, but someone will thank you.
