The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.
Campbell, Donald T (1979). "Assessing the impact of planned social change". Evaluation and Program Planning. 2 (1): 67–90.
[Campbell’s law
- Campbell’s Law is a term developed by psychologist and social scientist Donald T. Campbell. The law states that the more quantitative social indicators are used for social decision-making, the more susceptible it is to the pressures of corruption and the more likely it is to distort and contaminate the social process it is trying to monitor.
- This law is related to the sometimes unintended negative effects of public policy and government intervention in the economy, commerce, and health care, i.e., the cobra effect.
- Looking at the field of education, it has been shown that when exam scores become the goal of the educational process, they lose their value as an indicator of the state of education and distort the educational process in undesirable ways.
[Goodhart’s law
-
Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes.
Goodhart, Charles (1975). "Problems of Monetary Management: The U.K. Experience". In Courakis, Anthony S. (ed.). Inflation, Depression, and Economic Policy in the West. Totowa, New Jersey: Barnes and Noble Books (published 1981). p. 116.
- Goodhart’s law, expressed by economist Charles Goodhart, states that “once an economic indicator is chosen as a policy objective, it no longer serves as a good indicator.
Difference between Campbell’s Law and Goodhart’s Law
- These two laws address issues related to indicators and measurement, but have different focuses: Campbell’s law warns about the potential for abuse of an indicator as a tool for social decision-making to distort it. Goodhart’s law, on the other hand, warns that when an indicator is chosen as a policy goal, it loses its original meaning.
relevance - Incorrect KPI setting - Quantitative indicators are hacked.
This page is auto-translated from /nishio/キャンベルの法則 using DeepL. If you looks something interesting but the auto-translated English is not good enough to understand it, feel free to let me know at @nishio_en. I’m very happy to spread my thought to non-Japanese readers.