In a later experiment, participants read descriptions of historical events, judged the likelihoods of various possible outcomes, and were then told what had actually happened. Their recall of their predictions was biased towards what had actually occurred, and they were therefore insufficiently surprised by the events, given their earlier predictions. It was first reported in 1975 by the US psychologist Baruch Fischhoff (born 1946), who initially invited people to predict the likelihood of events (such as the US president's visit to China) before they occurred and later to recall their predictions. Radiology, 148(3), 609-615.The tendency for people who know that a particular event has occurred to overestimate in hindsight the probability with which they would have predicted it in foresight. Lung cancer detected during a screening program using four-month chest radiographs. O rganizational Behavior and Human Performance, 13(1), 1-16. I knew it would happen: Remembered probabilities of once-future things. Though, this is likely due to the Jake’s Bigger than Normal Head bias.įischhoff, B., & Beyth, R. But if it turns out I did well, you heard that prediction from me first. In regards to my test, though, I have no delusions that I was able to predict the question. “Look how smart I am!”) that you could “predict” it, and 2) gives you a sense that the world is predictable-which helps to alleviate fear. When you can know the outcome of an event, you don’t need to be afraid of it.įor similar reasons, believing that you knew something would happen all along 1) gives you a sense of satisfaction (i.e. That is, people like things to be predictable.

There are a number of explanations for why the hindsight bias occurs, but I believe some of the stronger evidence supports a motivational account. When physicians were given these positive x-rays and informed a tumor was present, the doctors said it was obvious that a tumor was there-even though these were the same x-rays that the same physicians had failed to diagnose in the first place! Over the course of this time period, close to 90 chest tumors were found. In a massive study that looked at more than 4,500 patients over six years, each patient would get a chest x-ray every few months. The hindsight bias has been tested in a lot of domains by a lot of researchers, but one area in particular that it has been applied to is physicians. Essentially, the bias states: after an event has occurred, people tend to have seen it as predictable, despite there being little objective information to have made such a conclusion originally. If the “hindsight bias” name weren’t already so established, it should’ve been called “That Thing Fathers Do” bias. And here, the participants ascribed an overestimated probability to the events that had actually happened. The President was heading to both Beijing and Moscow at the time, and researchers asked participants to estimate the likelihood of possible outcomes from the visit.Ī bit of time after Nixon returned to the states, the original participants were corralled and asked to recall their probability estimates for the various outcomes.

Now, if I weren’t so versed in the phenomena of social psychology, I would be tempted to say, “Yeah, I figured there would be an emotion question that’s why I practiced it.” However, I am very much aware of the hindsight bias and our tendency for misremembering.įor example, one of the first papers to demonstrate the hindsight bias was done during the Nixon era. That is, one of the questions asked us to define an emotion, and as you know, dear reader, that was exactly what I did in the previous post. However, one of the reasons I feel confident in my performance was that I had unintentionally practiced one of the actual questions from the test. I had four measly hours to complete six grisly questions, and, overall, I think I did pretty well (except for the part where I accidentally jettisoned my energy drink all over my monitor and keyboard). Last Friday, I completed the first part of my candidacy exam. It’s easy to play the hand after the cards have been dealt.

Hindsight bias definition psychology