Hindsight bias
Also known as I-knew-it-all-along effect
Hindsight bias is the feeling, after something happens, that you knew it would happen all along. Once we know the result, it seems far more predictable than it really was.
In everyday life
After a stock market crash, commentators say the warning signs were obvious, though few of them acted on those signs beforehand.
After your friends' marriage ends, you tell everyone you saw it coming from the wedding day, though at the time you gave a heartfelt toast about their perfect match.
Why your mind does this
Imagining the past and the future is hard, so the brain uses the present as a template. Assuming things will stay roughly as they are now is a quick and usually workable guide. Making sense of events after the fact also helps us learn lessons and feel in control.
How to spot it
Ask whether you actually predicted this, in writing or out loud, before it happened.
How to counter it
Write down your predictions before events happen, so you can check later what you really expected.
Habits that catch it
- Grade decisions by what you knew
Good choices can end badly and bad ones can get lucky. Judge the reasoning with the information available at the time.
- Write predictions down
A dated note beats memory, which tends to edit itself to match what happened.
Same family: Projecting ourselves
SourcesFischhoff (1975)·Wikipedia