Occurs when we look back in time and see events are more predictable than they were at the time a decision was made. This bias, also known as the “knew-it-all-along effect”
What happens when we change idea? A lot of psychologist studied the phenomenon. One experiment goes like this: they carefully measure people’s reactions to some controversial topics, like death penalty. Then they see or hear a persuasive message pro or against death penalty and they measure again, usually the opinions shift more towards agreeing with the message. At last, the test subjects try to remember the opinion before the shift, which reveals hard. Most don’t even believe they ever thought it differently.
This bias has devastating effects on valuations on decision makers. Induces observers to value the quality of a decision not on the fact that the decisional process is ok, but if the result is good or bad.
The combining of result bias and the hindsight bias obtain undeserved rewards to lovers of danger. Leaders having fortune to their side have been never punished for taking too many risks.
See also
- Narrative Fallacy makes us explain the past through cause-and-effect — hindsight bias and narrative fallacy are the same mechanism in time: once we know the outcome, we construct a causal story that makes it feel inevitable; the two notes are the same coin seen from different angles
- Sistema 1 è automatico e veloce, sistema 2 è lento, deliberato e richiede attenzione — the inability to recall prior beliefs is a Sistema 1 overwrite: the new belief replaces the old one automatically, without Sistema 2 preserving the original
- Reality is full of details that are invisible until you notice them — hindsight bias is the temporal version: details that were invisible before the outcome become obvious after it, and we cannot remember not knowing them
- Non possiamo eliminare i bias, possiamo solo riconoscere le situazioni a rischio — the practical mitigation: keep written records of predictions and reasoning before outcomes are known; this is the only way to resist the overwrite