Quantification Fixation and Value Blindness: Why Decision Makers Need a Broader View of Impact

When Numbers Overshadow Meaning

Organisations continue to operate in data-rich environments, yet many remain insight-poor when it comes to social and environmental value. As pressures mount for better accountability especially around sustainability and social impact¹²; the default response is often to measure what is easiest to count, rather than what is most meaningful. This contributes to an "illusion of control"³ in impact reporting: because something is quantified, it is perceived as managed or solved

When what’s easy to see overshadows what truly matters

Quantification Fixation: Why Numbers Skew Our Judgement

A recent study explores “quantification fixation”⁴ : a systematic bias where people give more weight to information presented in numbers, even when other non-numeric information is just as or more relevant. Based on 21 experiments with over 23,000 participants, the findings show that people tend to choose options with stronger quantified indicators, regardless of whether those indicators actually matter most to the decision at hand.

This bias shows up in areas ranging from hiring to charitable giving to public policy. It also helps explain why strategic decisions are often based on what fits into a spreadsheet, even when it doesn’t reflect what stakeholders care about most.

In one example from the study,⁵ participants were more likely to donate to a charity that reported the number of meals delivered over one promising long-term community wellbeing, despite both outcomes being described as equally important. In another, consumers preferred a device boasting a “10-hour battery life” over one described as more comfortable to use. Once a number is introduced, it dominates attention even if it’s not the most important factor.

This isn’t just about convenience or familiarity. It changes how we perceive importance. When something is quantified, it disproportionately captures our focus and reshapes how we assign value. What’s easiest to measure starts to feel like it matters most.

From Reporting to Decision-Making: Where the Real Risk Lies

This same pattern appears across organisational settings. Consider CSR or internal learning and development programmes. Success is frequently measured by how many people attended, how many sessions were delivered, or how many certificates were issued. These metrics are easy to track, but they say little about whether learning occurred, behaviours changed, or confidence increased. Quantification fixation in this context leads to a cycle of reporting over reflection.

In procurement, similar dynamics apply. When supplier scorecards heavily weight cost and delivery timelines because they’re expressed in numbers and criteria like local economic development or social inclusion, which are harder to quantify, are overlooked. Even if these non-quantified criteria are officially included, they carry less weight in practice simply because they aren’t numerical.

This tendency reinforces a broader problem: when numbers become the dominant language, other dimensions of value risk being ignored. And that’s where Impact Measurement and Management (IMM) offers a crucial corrective.

How Impact Management Anchors Decision-Making in What Really Matters

Much has been written about the need to move beyond fixating on quantification⁶. The issue isn’t the use of numbers; it’s what we choose to count and how we interpret those counts.

But instead of abandoning numbers altogether, what if we quantify what is not included and embedded IMM into our decision-making processes?

Impact management, particularly when grounded in Social Value principles or aligned with the UNDP SDG Impact Standards, is designed to address this imbalance. It helps shift the emphasis from what’s easy to measure to what stakeholders actually value. It also addresses concerns raised by researchers about the sidelining of community priorities in favour of funder-defined metrics ⁷.

This shift enables IMM to function not just as a tool for compliance or performance monitoring, but as a strategy for stakeholder responsiveness, internal learning, and systems change.⁸ When embedded into governance and decision structures, impact management supports organisations in prioritising participation over prescription, and change over control.

This disconnect is evident in field-based experiences as well. For instance, a 2024 impact assessment report reviewing programs across ASEAN highlights the difficulty of applying standard metrics to local realities, noting that organisations often struggle to reflect stakeholder experiences, especially for outcomes like inclusion or wellbeing, when these are not easily monetised or benchmarked⁹. These challenges highlights the friction between measurement rigidity and adaptive learning.

Rather than imposing our own definitions of value, a good IMM frameworks enable organisations to align measurement with what affected stakeholders actually experience and consider meaningful.

By combining standardised indicators with qualitative evidence and contextual data, IMM preserves the legitimacy of stakeholder perspectives.¹⁰ This ensures that values like equity, inclusion, and relational capital are not left out of decision-making just because they resist easy quantification.

What’s magnified isn’t always what matters most.

This helps address what has been described as “value blindness”: the tendency to overlook or undervalue important, often qualitative, dimensions such as organisational culture, employee wellbeing, or community resilience; simply because they are harder to quantify. When one attribute is presented numerically and another is not, the quantified one tends to dominate the decision frame; even if it’s less relevant. IMM offers a way to rebalance this dynamic, ensuring that what gets measured actually reflects what matters most.

Final thought

As impact professionals, we know that not everything that counts can be counted.

But recent behavioural research shows that simply adding a number to a decision-making context can shift attention and perceived importance: even when that number isn’t the most relevant.¹¹

This has real consequences for how impact is understood, prioritised, and acted upon. That’s why IMM isn’t just about proving outcomes but about improving how decisions are made. And that starts with recognising when numbers distort rather than clarify what really matters.

1. https://www.ft.com/content/3bc008ff-cf3d-4bd7-8052-e1beeabca002?utm_source=chatgpt.com

2. https://www.ft.com/content/11d7856b-8928-461b-a70b-87e9950ef447?utm_source=chatgpt.com

3. https://www.numberanalytics.com/blog/illusion-of-control-social-psychology-guide

4. Chang, L. W., Kirgios, E. L., Mullainathan, S., & Milkman, K. L. (2024). Does counting change what counts? Quantification fixation biases decision-making. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(46), e2400215121.

5. Chang et al (2024)

6. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-11-13/trying-to-quantify-everything-is-hurting-our-decisions?embedded-checkout=true

7. Ebrahim, A., & Rangan, V. K. (2014). What Impact? A Framework for Measuring the Scale and Scope of Social Performance. California Management Review, 56(3), 118–141.

8. Kump, B., et al. (2024). Advancing Systems Change Through Impact Measurement and Management. Social Enterprise Journal. https://doi.org/10.1108/SEJ-04-2024-0069

9. Olsen, S., Galimidi, B., 2008. Catalog of Approaches to Impact Measurement: Assessing Social Impact in Private Ventures. Social Venture Technology Group Working Paper, San Francisco. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/84911856.pdf

10. Kump, B., et al. (2024).

11. Chang et al, (2024)