Hindsight Bias

Also known as the “knew-it-all-along” effect or “creeping determinism”. The hindsight bias reflects the tendency to look back at certain events which at the time were unforeseeable and impossible to predict, and think that their outcome was, in fact, predictable.

Decision-making is partially made on an individual’s ability to predict consequences and by falling into this trap, said individual will overestimate his ability to foresee the possible implications of his future decisions and lead to unnecessary risks.

Looking back at past events often comes with the price of selectively remembering information which confirms what is now known as if to make sense and create a story of how events transpired the way they did. It is most likely to occur when there is a negative outcome, as there is a general tendency for people to pay more attention them.

Hindsight Bias History

The Hindsight Bias, even though it was not yet named at the time, emerged in psychological research during the late 20^th century.

Baruch Fischhoff, a psychology graduate student in the 1970’s, spearheaded the research after finding inspiration a seminar where speaker Paul E. Meehl noted this phenomenon while doing research on how clinicians estimated the outcomes of their cases.

Fischhoff later conducted a study where he asked participants to attribute a certain probability to a set of fixed outcomes on how the Richard Nixon’s visit to Beijing would go.

After the president’s return, Fischhoff asked the participants to, once again, do the same and concluded that they were in full Hindsight Bias mode. Accordingly, and suitably, the title of his paper was "I knew it would happen".