Hindsight bias: how knowledge and heuristics affect our reconstruction of the past

Once people know the outcome of an event, they tend to overestimate what could have been anticipated in foresight. Although typically considered to be a robust phenomenon, this hindsight bias is subject to moderating circumstances. In their meta-analysis, Christensen-Szalanski and Willham (1991) observed that the more experience people have with the task under consideration, the smaller is the resulting hindsight bias. This observation is one benchmark against which the explanatory power of process models of hindsight bias can be measured. Therefore, we used it to put the recently proposed RAFT model (Hoffrage, Hertwig, & Gigerenzer, 2000) to another test. Our findings were consistent with the "expertise effect." Specifically, we observed-using computer simulations of the RAFT model-that the more comprehensive people's knowledge is in foresight, the smaller is their hindsight bias. In addition, we made two counterintuitive observations: First, the relation between foresight knowledge and hindsight bias appears to be independent of how knowledge is processed. Second, even if foresight knowledge is false, it can reduce hindsight bias. We conclude with a discussion of the functional value of hindsight bias.     

Hindsight bias and outcome bias in judging directors’ liability and the role of free will beliefs

Following a corporate disaster such as bankruptcy, people in general and damaged parties, in particular, want to know what happened and whether the company's directors are to blame. The accurate assessment of directors’ liability can be jeopardized by having to judge in hindsight with full knowledge of the adverse outcome. The present study investigates whether professional legal investigators such as judges and lawyers are affected by hindsight bias and outcome bias when evaluating directors’ conduct in a bankruptcy case. Additionally, to advance our understanding of the mechanisms underlying these biases, we also examine whether free will beliefs can predict susceptibility to hindsight bias and outcome bias in this context. In two studies (total N = 1,729), we demonstrate that legal professionals tend to judge a director's actions more negatively and perceive bankruptcy as more foreseeable in hindsight than in foresight and that these effects are significantly stronger for those who endorse the notion that humans have free will. This contribution is particularly timely considering the many companies that are currently going bankrupt or are facing bankruptcy amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.     

Hindsight bias redefined: It’s about time

Four experiments introduced a new conceptual and methodological approach to hindsight bias, traditionally defined as the tendency to exaggerate the a priori predictability of outcomes after they become known. By examining likelihood estimates rooted to specific time points during an unfolding event sequence (videos and short text stories), judged both in foresight and hindsight, we conceptualized hindsight bias as a contrast between two “inevitability curves,” which plotted likelihood against time. Taking timing into account, we defined three new indicators of accuracy: linear accuracy (how well hindsight judgments capture the linear trend of foresight judgments over time), rate accuracy (how well hindsight judgments reflect the slope of foresight judgments over time), and temporal accuracy (how well hindsight judgments specify the overall timing of the full envelope of foresight judgments). Results demonstrated that hindsight judgments showed linear and rate accuracy, but were biased only in terms of lack of temporal accuracy. The oft-used catchphrase “knew it all along effect” was found to be a misnomer, in that participants were well aware in hindsight that their earlier foresight judgments reflected uncertainty. The current research therefore points to one way in which retrospective judgments can be considered biased, yet simultaneously suggests that considerable accuracy exists when people render such judgments.     

On the Practical Significance of Hindsight Bias: The Case of the Expectancy-Disconfirmation Model of Consumer Satisfaction

The implications of the phenomenon of hindsight bias for the expectancy-disconfirmation model of consumer satisfaction are investigated, and the moderating effects of choice (i.e., whether or not a product is selected on the basis of one′s expectations regarding the product′s likely performance) on the incidence of hindsight bias and on the relationships between expectations, performance, disconfirmation, and satisfaction are considered. A study dealing with consumers′ satisfaction with personalized envelopes shows that perceived performance biases people′s recall of their foresight expectations in a systematic way (hindsight bias), that hindsight, rather than foresight, expectations are the more potent influence on disconfirmation and satisfaction, and that choice moderates the degree of hindsight bias and the relationships between satisfaction and its antecedents.     

Surprise influences hindsight–foresight differences in temporal judgments of animated automobile accidents

The hindsight bias occurs when people view an outcome as more foreseeable than it actually was. The role of an outcome’s initial surprise in the hindsight bias was examined using animations of automobile accidents. Twenty-six participants rated the initial surprise of accidents’ occurring in eight animations. An additional 84 participants viewed these animations in one of two conditions: Half stopped the animations when they were certain an accident would occur (i.e., in foresight), and the other half watched the entire animations first and then stopped the animations when they thought that a naïve viewer would be certain that an accident would occur (i.e., in hindsight). When the accidents were low in initial surprise, there were no foresight–hindsight differences; when initial surprise was medium, there was a hindsight bias; and when initial surprise was high, there was a reversed hindsight bias. The results are consistent with a sense-making model of hindsight bias.     

Hindsight bias in gustatory judgments

Being in hindsight, people tend to overestimate what they had known in foresight. This phenomenon has been studied for a wide variety of knowledge domains (e.g., episodes with uncertain outcomes, or solutions to almanac questions). As a result of these studies, hindsight bias turned out to be a robust phenomenon. In this paper, we present two experiments that successfully extended the domain of hindsight bias to gustatory judgments. Participants tasted different food items and were asked to estimate the quantity of a certain ingredient, for example, the residual sugar in a white wine. Judgments in both experiments were systematically biased towards previously presented low or high values that were labeled as the true quantities. Thus, hindsight bias can be considered a phenomenon that extends well beyond the judgment domains studied so far.     

Personality differences in hindsight bias

Ten personality correlates of hindsight bias were tested in a study with 75 participants answering almanac-type knowledge questions. Participants showed hindsight bias when hindsight estimates were compared to foresight estimates (memory condition), when hindsight estimates were compared to foresight estimates of other participants (BS = between-subjects hypothetical condition), and when hindsight estimates were compared to foresight estimates in response to equally difficult control items (WS = within-subject hypothetical condition). The magnitude of hindsight bias in both hypothetical conditions was positively associated with the participant's field dependence and his or her tendency for favourable self-presentation (as measured by social desirability and impression management). Between-subjects hypothetical hindsight was associated with the participant's conscientiousness and need for predictability and control (as measured by a rigidity scale). In a multiple regression analysis, 39% of the variance in BS hypothetical hindsight, 24% of the variance in WS hypothetical hindsight, but no significant proportion of the variance in memory hindsight could be accounted for by personality measures. It is concluded that individual differences in hindsight bias exist and must be taken into account in a complete model of the effect.     

Personality differences in hindsight bias

Ten personality correlates of hindsight bias were tested in a study with 75 participants answering almanac-type knowledge questions. Participants showed hindsight bias when hindsight estimates were compared to foresight estimates (memory condition), when hindsight estimates were compared to foresight estimates of other participants (BS = between-subjects hypothetical condition), and when hindsight estimates were compared to foresight estimates in response to equally difficult control items (WS = within-subject hypothetical condition). The magnitude of hindsight bias in both hypothetical conditions was positively associated with the participant's field dependence and his or her tendency for favourable self-presentation (as measured by social desirability and impression management). Between-subjects hypothetical hindsight was associated with the participant's conscientiousness and need for predictability and control (as measured by a rigidity scale). In a multiple regression analysis, 39% of the variance in BS hypothetical hindsight, 24% of the variance in WS hypothetical hindsight, but no significant proportion of the variance in memory hindsight could be accounted for by personality measures. It is concluded that individual differences in hindsight bias exist and must be taken into account in a complete model of the effect.     

The Importance of Item Selection in "Knew-It-All-Along" Studies of General Knowledge

This study was designed to investigate the effects of item sampling on hindsight bias in experiments using general knowledge material. The results show that the use of random versus traditional experimenter-selected item samples can have different effects on hindsight bias. In a within-subjects study almost twice as many items in a random sample were connected with a reversed effect rather than with a traditional hindsight bias. The same items that resulted in overconfidence in foresight lead to a higher degree of hindsight bias than others. The results suggest that earlier findings of unusually large hindsight effects with general knowledge tasks may be explained by the selection of items used. No hindsight effect was found on confidence scores in a within-subjects design, but was obtained in a between-subjects design. Results suggest that the use of a within-subjects design itself can moderate hindsight bias by familiarizing subjects with the task. The study shows the importance of two conditions for decreasing the hindsight bias: (1) The use of randomly sampled items, and (2) The use of a within-subjects procedure. When these conditions were met, the "knew-it-all-along effect" was completely eliminated.     

Hindsight bias around the world

Hindsight bias refers to the tendency to overestimate in hindsight what one has known in foresight. Recently, two experiments extended the research to include samples from different cultures (Choi & Nisbett, 2000; Heine & Lehman, 1996). Asking their participants what they would have guessed before they knew the outcome ("hypothetical design"), Choi and Nisbett (2000) found that Koreans, in comparison to North Americans, exhibited more hindsight bias. Heine and Lehman (1996), however, reported that Japanese people in comparison to Canadians showed marginally less hindsight bias. In a second study, in which participants were asked to recall what they had estimated before they knew the outcome ("memory design"), the latter authors found no difference in hindsight bias between Japanese people and Canadians. We extended these studies with 225 Internet participants, in a hypothetical design, from four different continents (Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America). Hindsight bias was large and similar for all samples except for German and Dutch participants who showed no hindsight bias at all. While the latter effect may be based on peculiarities of the material and of the participants, the former underscores the worldwide stability of the phenomenon. In addition a follow-up surprise rating (paper and pencil) in China (35 participants) and Germany (20 participants) revealed that only less surprising items led to hindsight bias while more surprising ones did not. We suggest that the basic cognitive processes leading to hindsight bias are by-products of the evolutionary-evolved capacity of adaptive learning. On top of these basic processes, individual meta-cognitions (e.g., elicited by surprise) or motives (e.g., a self-serving motive) may further moderate the amount of bias, thus explaining the diverging results of Choi and Nisbett (2000), Heine and Lehman (1996), and our own study.     

Being wise after the event: an investigation of hindsight bias

Two experiments are reported which invesigate hindsight bias (the tendency to overestimate the probability of an event when one knows it has occurred and is asked to ignore the fact). Experiment I focuses upon the influence of commitments and desires upon subjective probability assessments in hindsight and foresight. Using the British General Election of May 1979 and Conservative and Labour Party members as subjects, only weak support for hindsight bias was found. However, party affiliation did exert a strong influence over likelihood assessments; outcomes favourable to the preferred party were perceived as more likely, in both foresight and hindsight, than outcomes favourable to the other party, and vice versa. Experiment 11 required subjects to make estimates in foresight and hindsight concerning the numbers of percentages of women in various roles in society. Strong evidence for hindsight bias was found. The paper concludes by considering the judgemental strategies subjects might have used in the two experiments. This is done by drawing on the heuristics of thinking proposed by Tversky and Kahneman.     

The Effects of Feedback Source and Plausibility of Hindsight Bias

Whenever people try to recollect an earlier given estimate after they have received feedback about the true solution, they tend to overestimate what they had known in foresight. This phenomenon is known as “hindsight bias”. This paper reports three attempts to eliminate hindsight bias by labelling the feedback value as another person's estimate (instead of as the solution) and by providing extremely incorrect (instead of the true) values as feedback. Both variations, however alone and in combination failed to reduce hindsight bias. Only when the data were separated according to whether participants considered the feedback value plausible or not did cases of unbiased recollections emerge: Feedback values that were labelled as estimates of another person and found to be implausible did not lead to hindsight bias. This finding argues against the view that hindsight bias is an automatic and unavoidable effect of feedback presentation.     

Evaluating scientific research: Belief,hindsight bias,ethics, and research evaluation

Students may exhibit two forms of cognitive biases, belief and hindsight bias, in evaluating a scientific experiment. Counter to disagreement, they may only believe an outcome that agrees with their belief to be more predictable in hindsight than foresight. The focus of this research is on the relationship between these biases. Students were queried about their dichotomous beliefs (learned vs. genetic) about behavior for an animal experiment and then assigned randomly to a no‐outcome or genetic outcome condition. With agreement between students' belief and outcome, the findings revealed hindsight bias (foreseeability) supported by the outcomes for surprise, disappointment, ethics, and research evaluation. With disagreement, hindsight bias was trumped along with perceiving the experiment as being less ethical and scientifically sound. Regardless of the outcome, students seem to adhere to their beliefs. Hence, students may believe that the outcome is inconsequential because it is obvious or contrary to their beliefs.     

Cultural Interpretations of Global Information? Hindsight Bias after Reading Wikipedia Articles across Cultures

Summary: Hindsight bias is the mistaken belief that an outcome could have been foreseen once it is known. But what happens after learning about an event? Can reading biased media amplify hindsight distortions? And do people from different cultural backgrounds — with different cognitive thinking styles — draw equal conclusions from equal media reports? We report two studies with Wikipedia articles and samples from different cultures (Study 1: Germany, Singapore, USA, Vietnam, Japan, Sweden, N = 446; Study 2: USA, Vietnam, N = 144). Participants read one of two article versions (foresight and hindsight) about the Fukushima Nuclear Plant and estimated the likelihood, inevitability, and foreseeability of the nuclear disaster. Reading the hindsight article increased individuals' hindsight bias independently of analytic or holistic thinking style. Having excluded survey language as potential impact factor (Study 2), this result remains. Our findings extend prior research on hindsight bias by demonstrating the amplifying effect of additional (biased) information on hindsight bias. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Metacognitive Experiences and Human Judgment: The Case of Hindsight Bias and Its Debiasing

ABSTRACT— Theories of judgment have emphasized the influence of what comes to mind—the content of people's thoughts. But recent research shows that metacognitive experiences accompanying thinking, like a sense of the ease or difficulty with which information comes to mind, qualify the conclusions that people derive from thought content. The case of hindsight bias and attempts to remove that bias (debiasing) illustrate this. After an event outcome is known, people display hindsight bias by exaggerating its inevitability, believing they "knew it all along." The magnitude of hindsight bias varies with the ease or difficulty that known or alternative outcomes come to mind; the usually observed hindsight bias may even reverse when outcomes are difficult to bring to mind or increase when alternatives are difficult to bring to mind. Implications of metacognitive experiences can extend to other biases and their debiasing, as well as to how people make sense of the past more generally.     

Hindsight bias after receiving self-relevant health risk information: A motivational perspective

The phenomenon of hindsight bias was explored in the context of self-relevant health risk information. Participants in a community screening estimated their cholesterol level (foresight measure) before receiving positive or negative feedback based on their actual cholesterol level. Hindsight estimations were then assessed twice: once immediately after the feedback, and again several weeks later. While the unexpected positive feedback group showed no systematic recall bias, hindsight estimations of individuals receiving unexpectedly negative feedback showed a dynamic change over time. Immediately after the feedback, participants' recollection of their expected cholesterol level were shifted towards their actual cholesterol level (hindsight bias). In contrast, several weeks later, foresight estimations were recalled as less accurate than they had been (reversed hindsight bias). These data might reflect a change of the motivational focus from "hot affect" and fear control, which occur immediately after receiving negative feedback, to danger control, which occurs some time after the feedback, as proposed by the dual process model.     

Hindsight bias after receiving self-relevant health risk information: a motivational perspective

The phenomenon of hindsight bias was explored in the context of self-relevant health risk information. Participants in a community screening estimated their cholesterol level (foresight measure) before receiving positive or negative feedback based on their actual cholesterol level. Hindsight estimations were then assessed twice: once immediately after the feedback, and again several weeks later. While the unexpected positive feedback group showed no systematic recall bias, hindsight estimations of individuals receiving unexpectedly negative feedback showed a dynamic change over time. Immediately after the feedback, participants' recollection of their expected cholesterol level were shifted towards their actual cholesterol level (hindsight bias). In contrast, several weeks later, foresight estimations were recalled as less accurate than they had been (reversed hindsight bias). These data might reflect a change of the motivational focus from "hot affect" and fear control, which occur immediately after receiving negative feedback, to danger control, which occurs some time after the feedback, as proposed by the dual process model.     

后见之明研究综述

后见之明指后见判断(可得益于事件结果反馈的判断)与先见判断(不知晓事件结果时的判断)的系统差异,其研究范式大体可分为两类,假定型设计和记忆型设计。后见效应的研究,具有重大的理论价值和应用价值。文章对后见效应的研究范式、研究结果、及其有关理论进行了简要综述,并对其应用价值加以评述。     

模拟法官决策中心理控制源对后见偏差的影响

考察模拟法官决策中心理控制源对后见偏差的影响。实验采用2（心理控制源：外控型、内控型）×3（有无策略：后见组、分散注意组、指导组）两因素被试间实验设计。采用自编两个案例及问卷测查模拟法官决策中后见效应的差异。实验结果发现,不同心理控制源是导致模拟法官决策中后见偏差存在差异的影响因素。同时,两种策略都能够有效减少模拟法官决策中的后见偏差。     

Domain Knowledge and Hindsight Bias among Poker Players

Hindsight bias occurs when individuals believe that events were more predictable after they have occurred than they actually were before they occurred. Although hindsight bias is a well‐studied phenomenon, few studies have examined the role of expertise in this bias. Two experiments investigated the relation between the magnitude of hindsight bias and self‐reported poker expertise (Experiment 1) and assessed poker knowledge (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, self‐rated poker expertise was negatively correlated with hindsight bias. Experiment 2 employed memory and hypothetical hindsight conditions and found that poker knowledge was negatively correlated with hindsight bias in the memory condition, but unrelated to hindsight bias in the hypothetical condition. These results help elucidate the role of expertise in hindsight bias and provide additional support for the separate components view, which claims there are different forms of hindsight bias that are differentially affected by certain factors. Domain knowledge appears to be one of such factors. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.