A Certainty-Control Confidence Map is an excellent graphic for discussing decision-making

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Graphics can help us to picture a topic. On July 5, 2020 I blogged about Is that 2x2 graphic a chart or a matrix? How many quadrants are there?

 

Peter Atwater’s 2023 book The Confidence Map: Charting a path from chaos to clarity uses a map very well to discuss decision-making. As shown above using color and PowerPoint rather than his monochrome line drawing, his two variables at low or high levels are Certainty and Control. There are four different quadrants:

 

The Stress Center (with low Certainty and low Control)

The Passenger Seat (with high Certainty and low Control)

The Launch Pad (with low Certainty and high Control)  

The Comfort Zone (with high Certainty and high Control)  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As is shown above, a map can show us a Confidence Spectrum covering a wide range from way down at Defeated to way up at Invincible. There is a good discussion of the book in an article by Enda Curran and Michael P. Regan at Bloomberg on July 5, 2023 with the somewhat cryptic title of More questions about work-from-home productivity [and the confidence map].

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And a map can show the chronology for a societal problem like the beginning COVID-19, as shown above.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It also can show decisions we made when solving a problem, like dealing with a burst water pipe, as is shown above.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Furthermore, it can classify a range of personal problems encountered by a high-school senior.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How we feel can vary widely depending on which quadrant we occupy, as illustrated by Christine Louise Hohlbaum in a Psychology Today article on July 17, 2023 titled How to be consciously confident to offset anxiety.

 

But there is a big problem with the terminology in Peter Atwater’s book. Based on the title, you would expect him to refer to the graphic as a Confidence Map. On page 5 he instead begins referring to it as a Confidence Quadrant. First, this just is incorrect grammar. In the in Merriam-Webster dictionary the definition for a quadrant is:

 

 “any of the four parts into which a plane is divided by rectangular coordinate axes lying in that plane.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Second, the term Confidence Quadrant already had appeared in 2016 as the title of a book by Darren Fisher and Reji Laberge - The Confidence Quadrant: Develop an Attitude That Embraces Both Success and Failure. As shown above, based on an October 2018 article titled Confidence Quadrant Handout, it refers to another graphic, about success and failure.

 

What about the term Confidence Map? It turns up regarding the assessment of imaging. My Google search showed that first appeared four decades ago in an article by Ross F. Nelson at Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing on September 1983 titled Detecting Forest Canopy Change Due to Insect Activity Using Landsat MSS. In 2012 it was in the title for a US Patent: Confidence map, method for generating the same and method for refining a disparity map. A more recent article by Maximilian Beckers, Colin M. Palmer, and Carsten Sachse in Acta Crystallographica, Section D on April 1, 2020 is titled Confidence maps: statistical inference of cryo-EM maps.

 

We need to add more qualifiers, and can best call the excellent graphic in Peter Atwater’s book a Certainty-Control Confidence Map.