What’s hindsight?

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Hindsight bias is a documented psychological phenomenon in which people exaggerate the predictability of an event after it has already happened. Some psychologists refer to this phenomenon as the “I knew this would happen” effect. According to a study done by the American Psychological Association in 2000, this bias actually helps people think more clearly at times by helping the brain retain correct and relevant information rather than incorrect information.

You can probably think of a few examples of hindsight bias in your life, especially if phrases like “hindsight is also 20/20” and “I told you so!” sounds familiar to you. This bias works in several ways, and it’s especially important to take this into account in criminal cases, because a witness may not be strictly accurate, as they may be influenced by hindsight bias, along with a number of other biases that can affect how they someone’s brain resets and recalls information.

A classic example of this phenomenon occurs when someone claims that their prediction about an event was more significant than it actually was. For example, someone might generally remark that it “looks like rain in the future,” given their general knowledge of local weather patterns. If it rains shortly after making this statement, the person may feel that the forecast was stronger than it actually was. Incorrect or inaccurate predictions tend to go unremembered as well as vaguely correct predictions, reinforcing the idea in someone’s mind that their predictive abilities are better than they really are.

In a specific phenomenon called vaticinium ex eventu, someone makes an extremely vague statement about an event that might occur, and then turns that statement into a solid prediction after the event occurs. This is sometimes ferociously called “postdiction”. Many examples of vague predictions that were later thought to be more important than they actually were can be found in Greek mythology, where cryptic oracles make general statements that can easily be said to predict a large number of events.

Along with many other documented biases in psychology, hindsight bias is caused by something known as the availability heuristic. In essence, people make judgments about things based on information they can readily recall, even though that may not be the most scientific way to base that judgment. For example, someone might visit a particular fast food chain franchise and notice that all of the customers are overweight. He or she could then say that all of that chain’s customers are overweight, based on this single example. In the case of hindsight bias, people turn vague statements into solid predictions and assume that an event such as the outcome of a presidential election is predictable based on their experiences.

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