Disambiguation: Hindsight redirects here. For the character from Marvel Comics see Hindsight (Marvel Comics).

Hindsight bias, sometimes called the I-knew-it-all-along effect, is the inclination to see past events as being predictable and reasonable to expect, perhaps because they are more available than possible outcomes which did not occur. Subjects also tend to remember their own future predictions as being more accurate than they were after the fact. People are, in effect, biased by the knowledge of what has actually happened when evaluating its likelihood.

Hindsight bias has been demonstrated experimentally in a variety of settings, including politics, games and medicine. Prophecy that is recorded after the fact is an example of hindsight bias, given its own rubric, as vaticinium ex eventu.

It has been shown that examining possible alternatives may reduce the effects of this bias.

The Polish proverb "Mądry Polak po szkodzie", which means "A Pole is wise after damage occurred", is an example of hindsight.

Classic studies

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Paul Lazarus (1949): Lazarus gave participants interpretive statements that seemed like common sense immediately after they were read, but in actuality the opposite was true.

Karl Teigen (1986): Teigen gave participants proverbs to evaluate. When participants were given the proverb "Fear is stronger than love", most students would rate it as true; when given its opposite ("Love is stronger than fear"), most would also rate that as true.

Consequences and implications

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Some famous critics of the social sciences (Cullen Murphy claim social scientists find that "[... people's behavior is pretty much what you'd expect."

Phrases

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The following common phrases are illustrative of this fallacy:

• With the wisdom of hindsight.
• Now you tell me!
• Retrospective foresight.
• Hindsight is 20/20.
• Hindsight is a wonderful thing

See also

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• Cognitive bias
• Historian's fallacy
• List of cognitive biases
• Memory
• Memory bias

References

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• Bernstein, Michael André. (1994). Foregone Conclusions: Against Apocalyptic History. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Fischhoff, B. & Beyth, R. (1975). "I knew it would happen": Remembered probabilities of once-future things. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance 13, 1-16.
• García Landa, José Ángel. (2004) "The Hermeneutic Spiral from Schleiermacher to Goffman: Retroactive Thematization, Interaction, and Interpretation." BELL (Belgian English Language and Literature) ns 2: 155-66.
• Memory (2003). Special issue on Hindsight Bias, ed. Ulrich Hoffrage and Rüdiger F. Pohl).11.4/5.
• Morson, Gary Saul. (1994). Narrative and Freedom: The Shadows of Time. New Haven: Yale University Press.
• Meyers, David G. (2005). Social Psychology. Boston: McGraw Hill (p. 18-19).

External links

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• Objects in the Rearview Mirror May Appear Firmer Than They Are: Retrospective/Retroactive Narrative Dynamics in Criticism (José Ángel García Landa, University of Zaragoza, Spain)

Cognitive biases | Learning | Memory biases

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