10 Hindsight Bias Examples

What is hindsight bias and what are the common examples generally?

Hindsight bias is a type of cognitive bias where people perceive past events as inevitable or predictable. It causes people to convince themselves that they know all along how past events will turn out.

Generally, people often consider several scenarios of how things will turn out in the future. However, we can only predict events to go a certain way but not precisely as it would be in the end.

We will be discussing hindsight bias examples and just maybe, you have been in a similar situation with a few examples in this guide.

Definition of Hindsight Bias

Hindsight bias is a type of intellectual bias that makes people to believe that a certain past event was more predictable or inevitable. This happens because people often believe they know the result of a sports event, business strategy, or how a relationship will turn out.

People believe they can predict the outcome of an event even before it started.

Do they make these predictions based on statistical analysis or is it just a feeling within? Well, in my opinion, I think is more of having a feeling than going by statistics or calculations.

These days we see people predicting different scenarios of how future events will turn out. They visualize these different scenarios but in reality, they are not certain which of them will materialize.

Whatever scenario plays out after they have made their prediction, people will be like “They saw it coming”. But did they initially consider the scenario that finally plays out?

Hindsight bias is likely to occur when a predicted event yields a negative result. People tend to more attention to a negative outcome of events rather than a positive outcome.

Hindsight bias might make people think they “knew” a couple’s relationship wouldn’t last.

Also Read: What Are the Sociological Concepts? (Tips for Students)

Hindsight Bias Examples

Let’s look at a few hindsight bias examples.

In Relationships

Hindsight bias might make people think they “knew” a couple’s relationship wouldn’t last.

Can we really identify Red Flags before two adults start a relationship? We often hear words like “I knew she was trouble” or things like “I tried telling you he was bad news”.

Finding the perfect partner for a long-lasting relationship can involve going through a list of ‘not the right person’. Searching for the perfect and compatible partner is part of the journey.

Relationships sometimes don’t turn out the way we expect them to. Yes, going out on the first date is usually fun and a memorable experience.

At the beginning of the relationship, we ignore behaviours of any kind we wouldn’t tolerate for long. Perhaps it’s not the time to start complaining and giving it time will change the situation.

But, when things start to get out of hand and we can’t take it anymore, we rely on hindsight bias and a loyal friend. This is when our close friends start to say things like “I knew this was going to happen”.

Practising the Stock

Being a professional stock broker involves a lot of stress. People in this profession experience stress and being wrong about stocks can be a blow to an individual’s confidence.

In reality, stock brokers exhibit hindsight bias, specifically in a group meeting. A group meeting may be held to discuss potential buys and the way forward.

During this group meeting, several opinions will be expressed and some will be for a certain stock and some will be against some stocks.

After the meeting, the team decided to select a few stocks to invest in. They spend millions buying a number of shares. If one of the shares fails, there will always be several reactions to the recent outcome.

People will start saying a lot of things like “I knew this was going to happen” or “I knew it was going to go down”.

Saying things like this doesn’t help the situation neither does it make anyone feel better. But the person saying these words is most likely not to be affected by this negative outcome.

Introducing New Products

In business, the goal is to be innovative, manufacture new products to entice customers. However, introducing a new product requires a lot of resources.

A company might spend millions in Research and Development for a new product. For the company to introduce their new product to the public, they will need to spend more money on advertising.

If the new product introduced to the public fails and the millions spent both on manufacturing and advertising is lost, people will talk.

This will mainly be the decision-makers complaining about not having enough information. You will see hindsight bias in action as the decision-makers will be complaining.

Also Read: 15 Adaptive Behavior Examples

The Monday Morning Quarterback

The beautiful game of American football is watched by millions, especially during the Super Bowl.

In reality, American football fans often criticize the actions of the players and coaches. We have lots of athletes with years of experience in the game.

Teams in the NFL are so balanced and any team can win their game on any given day. Because of this, predicting the results of games is difficult.

But it does not prevent the Monday morning quarterbacking at the office.

Football fans often make a few claims that the coach “should have known better” that the play was going to be called by the other team.

Political Mistakes

Politicians are usually seen as incompetent and dishonourable. We call them incompetent for their selfish ambition.

We call them incompetent and selfish because of their empty promises, poor decisions, and mismanagement of funds to develop certain infrastructure.

We complain about their performances in office but if we are given the opportunity to be in that position, we wouldn’t do anything differently. Being a politician requires more than we think.

It’s difficult to find that one perfect politician who will please everyone with his or her performance in office.

Teacher Reprimanding a Student

Teachers most times reprimand their students for certain decisions they made which may at the time be considered stupid.

The behaviour of a child shows they have less experience and can’t make decisions on their own. There are still at the lower developmental stage of life.

Let’s admit that children can be annoying sometimes and this may cause adults to yell at them. Teachers for example sometimes yell at children.

The child has to take the reprimand regardless of any effort made initially to do things right.

The teacher however has made so many mistakes throughout his life. His current position gives him the right to pass judgment on a child.

Also Read: What are The Examples of Discourse Analysis?

A Broken Plate

As an adult, you decide to clean the cupboard in your kitchen. You take a plate, place it on the counter.

You go on doing your cleaning and mistakenly knock the plate off the counter. The plate shatters on the kitchen floor: oh no!

Now you have to clean that up and you may blame yourself and say “I should have known not to put this plate on the counter”.

Blaming yourself for not being able to foresee what would have happened with the plate is an example of hindsight bias.

Betting on Horses

There are many tracks that allow betting and they will also provide small booklets with information about horses in every race.

The small booklet will contain certain information about each horse like how much they weigh and their racing record, and the track they perform at their finest.

Betting on horses is fun and it’s more fun watching them gallop at full speed. Although this is fun and exciting, predicting which horse will win the race is more difficult.

Of course, people predict and they win and lost most times.

Whatever the outcome of the race may be, you will always hear people at the end of the race saying “I knew he was going to win”. This is one of the examples of hindsight bias, thinking you knew how things were going to turn out even before they started.

Hiring Decisions

Job applicants will likely present an excellent resume and perform well in an interview.

A convincing performance at an interview may not play out the same on the job. An employee may be good at their job or employing them might just be a big mistake for the company.

Since the HR department is responsible for hiring, the HR expert will say “I knew they were right for the job” if the recent hire works out. If things were not to go as planned, the HR manager might say “I knew they were not perfect for the job”.

Also Read: 10 Circular Reasoning Fallacy Examples

Military Actions

We have been at each other’s throats since we could walk upright. Throughout history, there have been many wars fought and lands invaded.

In the early 21^st century, the world witness the United States invade Iraq based on suspicion that the Asian country had a weapon of mass destruction. The Americans claimed they had evidence Iraq was in possession of such weapons of mass destruction.

The invasion ended and nothing was found as the Americans claimed.

After this, many journalists began changing their stories. Before the invasion of Iraq, there were many articles supporting the idea the country had weapons of mass destruction.

Conclusion

Hindsight bias is likely to occur when a predicted event yields a negative result. People tend to more attention to a negative outcome of events rather than a positive outcome.

Recommendations

References

Scribbr: What Is Hindsight Bias? | Definition & Examples
HelpfulProfessor: 15 Hindsight Bias Examples
Nirandfar: Hindsight Bias: Why You Make Terrible Life Choices
JJJ Christensen-Szalanski, CF Willham – Organizational behaviour and …, 1991: The hindsight bias: A meta-analysis
NJ Roese, KD Vohs – Perspectives on psychological science, 2012; Hindsight bias
RF Pohl, E Erdfelder – Cognitive illusions, 2016: Hindsight bia

Definition of Hindsight Bias