False Positive vs. False Negative
All flaws are costly. Estimate based on the measurement of quantitative characteristics stands a risk of imperfection. The errors could be a false positive or false negative. False-positive illustrates a wrongful presentation of a specific attribute. On the contrary, false-negative wrongfully indicates the absence of a condition, for example, a test developed to detect malaria showing there is no attribute of disease despite the patient suffering from it. As such, they accept and deny a null hypothesis. According to statistical hypothesis testing, false positive and false negative are type 1 and type 2, respectively. This essay compares false positive and false negative and their impact on an organization.
Primarily, false-positive has a positive conceptualization, which ultimately fails. In medicine, false-positive involves a wrongful identification of a condition. Tyler Hamilton explains how false-positive influences the life of an athlete (Fung, 2010). Because of false positive, an athlete may wrongfully fail a test, thereby experiencing stigmatization on cheating, Tyler explained this feeling as one of the worst. It is worth noting that Tyler Hamilton was one of the celebrated world cyclists. His career came to a sudden end with a failure on a drug test at the Tour of Spain. Although he claimed that he did not cheat on the race, the drug test came out positive, hence the probability of false positive.
Contrary, false-negative integrates the assumption of failure but ultimately proves successful. According to Fung (2010), many athletes get away with cheating. Besides, it is impossible to identify all substance abusers. Fung further enlisted ten habits that individuals employ to get false-negative results. They included stirring whiskey on the specimen when the tester is not looking, staging a motorcycle accident after misdirecting the examiner to avoid the out of competition test, and reserving a friend’s urine inside your body then release it when the test is due. Also, it included timing the staff, fake peeing, being ahead of the curve, and therapeutic-use exemption. Therefore, various individuals can hide on the anonymity of the false negative.
Also, both false positive and false negatives have various impacts on an organization. Essentially, false-positive influences the financial resources of an organization by leading to elevating revenue losses. For example, the incidences of fraud in e-commerce have led to the introduction of fraud detection solutions. This fraud detecting solution influenced the orders of an organization by canceling incoming orders and declining transactions leading to losses, also, false-positive impacts on the customer volume. The introduction of incentives in customer service may be embarrassing and aggravating to the customer, thereby leading to a reduction in numbers. Thirdly, false positive can lead to the damage of the organizational reputation. The tendency of a customer to tell others about their experiences on a particular business experience influences the image of an organization. Through customer ratings and reviews, there is an influence on the organizational image.
Furthermore, false-positive may result in deteriorating fraud detection accuracy. An illustration of this is when a merchant automatically rejects orders from other countries believed to be dangerous, thereby leading to customer loss and poor projection of screening decisions in the future. Also, through incomplete transaction analysis, fraud screening decisions may become skewed over time. However, on curbing false positive negative impact on the financial resources of the organization, there should be an application of various measures. An organization should establish rules and guidelines reinforcing threat intelligence, annual review to identify known false positive incidences, adjusting the guidelines for flexibility and effectiveness, and employing expertise on validation and analysis of the organizational operations.
Although individuals see false negative as a victimless fault, it combines various problems. According to Fung (2010), false-negative error may alter the financial benefits of an individual employee despite their hard work. Besides, in an organization drug test, having results as a false negative is unfair and has negative consequences to employees. With certain restrictions on applying for valid selection programs, there is still a need for evaluation of the predictive validity of the testing equipment. Therefore, false-negative outcomes influence the efficiency of substance testing programs.
Generally, false-positive associates positive conceptualization with adverse outcomes, whereas false-negative integrates assumption of failure but ultimately proves a success. In medicine, false-positive involves a wrongful identification of a condition. On obtaining false-negative results, individuals employ various methods to influence the testing procedures, including starring whiskey on the specimen, staging an accident, reserving a friend’s urine, and therapeutic-use exemption; however, both false positive and false negative influence on an organization. Essentially, false-positive impact on financial resources of an organization. This is because the introduction of fraud detecting solutions in e-commerce resulted in declining of specific orders, damaging organizational reputation, and a decrease in customer volumes. On the contrary, false-negative may alter the financial benefits of an individual employee despite the input of hard work. Therefore, both false positive and negative errors are costly, and an organization should aim to minimize these errors.
References
Fung, K. (2010). Numbers rule your world: the hidden influence of probability and statistics on everything you do. New York: McGraw-Hill.