Talk:Hindsight bias

message: This is my first serious attempt at growing the knowledge contained in Wikipedia.  I've tried my best to conform to the formating and content standards of this sphere, but if you see any problems with my work, I would appreciate feedback.  Thanks.  My edit was of implications/classic studies from the Myers textbook.
 (Contributed by User:Irimi)
I have a problem with the section listing phrases describing them as "illustrative of this fallacy":
Phrases
The following common phrases are illustrative of this fallacy:
With the wisdom of hindsight.
Retrospective foresight.
Hindsight is 20/20.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing
I don't think the common use of these phrases is so much an illustration (nor example) of this fallacy, but something slightly different, which I might almost call a joke (I don't know what to call it).
When someone (or I) say something like "hindsight is 20/20" I'm not trying to say (or imply) that someone has a false recollection that their prediction of outcome was correct, but instead saying that, now that the result is known, anybody could "predict" this (ex poste facto).
At least I don't think so.  I haven't changed anything on the page because I'm not 100% sure of myself or of how I might change that section if I were 100% sure.
209.60.102.231 12:56, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: September 2006

message: What exactly does either of the "classic studies" cited have to do with hindsight bias?  I haven't removed them because I'm open to the possibility that I'm missing something, but they both seem to be about a totally unrelated subject. 81.86.133.45 23:15, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Classic studies 

message: Could we please have some examples on this page? Without them it's quite hard to work out what the article is talking about. 58.165.109.255 (talk) 12:37, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Examples

message: I think the section on popular culture should be dropped.  Most of the examples provide therein are either inaccurate (e.g., they refer to overconfidence or simple egoism) or they are colloquial and improperly cited (e.g., weather and sports examples).  
I'm not sure if the popular culture section was added to address the 'examples' issue noted above, but for a psychological phenomenon which is related but distinct form other phenomena, precision is important.  I believe it should be relatively easy to pull examples from actual papers (e.g., medical malpractice). 128.237.247.173 (talk) 19:07, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I was thinking the same thing as I skimmed through this. Removed. —tktktk 01:01, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Popular Culture

message: ... Researchers attempt to decrease the bias in participants has failed, leading one to think that hindsight bias has an automatic source in cognitive reconstruction. This supports the Causal Model Theory and the use of sense-making to understand event outcomes. ...
I'm confused by the above statement. Can someone help to simplify and clarify it. I would rewrite it as follows but I'm not sure if that's what is being said. I couldn't access the reference so I don't know the original statement by Blank, H., & Nestler, S. (2007). 
... Attempts by researchers to decrease hindsight bias in participants has failed. This failure led some to think that hindsight bias has an automatic source in cognitive reconstruction. And this supports the Causal Model Theory and the use of sense-making to understand event outcomes.  ...
'''
Abelmebratu (talk) 21:53, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Elimination 

message: Hindsight and hindsight bias/knew-it-all-along effect are not the same thing. Hindsight is merely the "perception of the significance and nature of events after they have occurred". It does not necessarily mean you think you predicted it when in fact you didn't. The bias part of the article should be split off, or made just a subsection.Malick78 (talk) 10:14, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The article is about the hindsight bias. I've moved it back to where it should be. --JorisvS (talk) 19:14, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Wrong article

message: My name is Victoria, and over the next few weeks I plan on editing the hindsight bias article through a class at Shenandoah University. I plan on including information from the following two sources:
Nestler, Steffen; Egloff, Boris; Küfner, Albrecht C. P.; Back, Mitja D. "An integrative lens model approach to bias and accuracy in human inferences: Hindsight effects and knowledge updating in personality judgments." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Vol. 103 (4). October 2012. Retrieved on 2013-02-21.
Bernstein, Daniel M.; Wilson, Alexander Maurice; Pernat, Nicole L. M.; Meilleur, Louise R. "Auditory hindsight bias." Psychonomic Bulliten & Review. Vol. 19 (4). August 2012. Retrieved on 2013-02-21. - — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vmathews102 (talk • contribs) 
:Welcome! - David Gerard (talk) 22:56, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Editing for class project

message: A new editor just added (in ref tags not on any statement):
:Harley, E. M. (2007). HINDSIGHT BIAS IN LEGAL DECISION MAKING. Social Cognition, 25(1), 48-63. 
Does anyone have this to hand, as a possible source for new content? - David Gerard (talk) 22:27, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bare reference added, not after anything 

message: These edits are done by Miami University students for a Social Cognition assignment.
1. Lack of information about the sense-making process when explaining how surprise effects hindsight bias and Pezzo’s sense-making model. 
This models integrates two supported contradicting ideas that a surprising outcome can either show results of lesser or possibly reversed hindsight bias (when the individual will believe that the outcome wasn't a possibility at all), or a surprising outcome can lead to the hindsight bias being even stronger than before. “Initial surprise is necessary to trigger the sense-making process but if the sense making is not successful, surprise should prevail and -- as a consequence-- hindsight bias should be attenuated.” This lack of a sense-making process is what creates a reversed hindsight bias. Insight problems are expected to create a stronger hindsight bias because even though the individual is initially surprised, the solution to the insight problem makes sense after it has been seen.
2. My article is already cited in the wikipedia article but it can be expanded on. They only spend one line explaining the article and how to eliminate hindsight bias.
Research by Arkes, Faust, Guilmette, and Hart show that hindsight bias can be decreased by having participants think about a reason that the alternate hypothesis or hypotheses could be correct. This does not eliminate hindsight bias but it significantly decreases it. One explanation for this effect is that the participants start to doubt that the correct hypothesis and they report that they wouldn't have chosen it as often.
3. My article was not cited in the wiki page but I feel like they could reference it. In my article they looked at the magnitude of the bias that dealt with memory distortion.  They wanted to see whether there was a relationship between the amount of time that they gave the participants to respond and their level of bias. The results of Calvillo (2013) demonstrate that response time when recollecting foresight judgments is related to hindsight bias in a memory design. In both of the experiments participants made judgments, completed unrelated tasks, and then were then given the correct answer to some of the previous questions. They were then  asked to recall their original judgments. Half of the participants were asked to recall their original judgments quickly while the other half was given time to process this and respond with their original judgement. The hindsight bias index was greater among rapidly responding participants than among delayed responding participants.    The wiki page makes no mention of the magnitude of bias being affected by amount of time given to process their judgments.
Cprazete (talk) 00:22, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Social Cognition Project 

message: The area just below the header "Factors and Effects" and above the subheading "Affected Bias" should be removed. It is not only redundant because that information has already been provided at the top, but it is also incomplete/incorrect. Hindsight bias is not the phenomenon where the original recollection changes from "an original thought to something different provided new information." This definition could mean anything. For example, changing my original thought that oranges are yellow, then believing they are orange based off of someone telling me so in itself is not hindsight bias. The definition must catch the idea that I now believe that I had always known that oranges are orange, not simply that I changed that original thought from yellow to orange.
Ackelleher17 (talk) 17:19, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree that the section is factually wrong, especially the first section of it. That said, I don't know if the right answer is to remove it rather than move it or improve it. The study involving medical outcomes, for example (2nd paragraph) could help buttress either the history section above it, or health care system examples at the bottom of the article. In addition, it might be worth assessing the merit of this claim based on the evidence in the cited paper: "a focus on two main explanations of the bias: distorted event probabilities and distorted memory for judgments of factual knowledge." If there are really two main streams of explanations, so to speak, then I'd think it's an important thing to keep in the article, but probably rephrased and expanded so that it's clearer than it currently is. Jennjiyoun (talk) 00:51, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that this would be a good change, as there is even another section of the article that includes a redundant definition of Hindsight Bias (I discussed it in the Schizophrenia section below. It also looks like in this "factors and effects" section, the "two main explanations of bias" are introduced but not explicitly elaborated on - perhaps that could be another point that you look at. As a reader, I would organizationally expect to see a sub-heading that explains "distorted event probabilities and distorted memory for judgments of factual knowledge" (or even a hyperlink). Cnwobu (talk) 13:04, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggested Change Below Factors and Effects 

message: The fact that this section is entitled "related disorder" makes it seem to the reader that hindsight bias itself is a disorder. This is simply not true. Perhaps a better heading would read "Disorders that Highlight the Effects of Hindsight Bias." Although I am not convinced that this section is appropriate for this page, at least this heading would prevent people from developing the misconception that hindsight bias is a disorder. The PTSD section has too little to do with hindsight bias to make it appropriate to be a part of the hindsight bias page. The fact that patients with PTSD have abnormalities in some areas of the brain that may affect hindsight thinking is not a clear or a strong connection to make. This section is also better off not being included. Ackelleher17 (talk) 17:43, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: "Related disorders" is not an appropriate subject line, but "Disorders that highlight the effects of hindsight bias" is not very clear either. I suggest changing the heading to "Disorders involving hindsight bias." This does not suggest the bias as a disorder, but expands on the subject by explaining how it is related to highly-technical disorders that also involve brain damage. In regards to the suggestion to remove the PTSD section completely, I don't think this is necessary. Relating the bias to specific disorders helps readers put the concept in different context and shows that there are other ways in which the bias is important that don't have to do with every day cognitive processing. Perhaps there is just a better way to word it that would make this section sound more applicable to hindsight bias. KieraMolloy18 (talk) 18:58, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  The "Related Disorders" Section 

message: For clarity purposes, I would begin the section stating that there is no solution to eliminate hindsight bias in its totality, but only ways to decrease hindsight bias in testing. That being said, I would continue by stating the only observable way to do so. Because there is only an observable way in testing, why is it that research shows people still exhibit the bias even when they are informed about it? As a result, I would continue by illuminating that researchers’ attempts to decrease the bias in its entirety have failed, leading one to think that hindsight bias may also have an automatic source. Is there any information or conducted research/studies to suggest that hindsight bias is automatically sourced in the cognitive reconstruction of events? Without concrete facts or an explanation of conducted studies, this claim diminishes the legitimacy of the article. If there is none, then I would suggest eliminating this claim from the paragraph and only discussing the one way to reduce hindsight bias in testing. Overall, there are a few grammar changes including “Researchers attempts” to “Researchers’ attempts” and the inclusion of the word “the” before “correct hypothesis” in the second to last sentence. In the end, a new heading such as “The Reduction of Hindsight Bias in Testing” would prevent people from developing the misconception that hindsight bias can be eliminated in the human mindset, as suggested with its current header. 
Jmt59 (talk) 20:07, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the "Elimination" Section could be improved. Changing the title could help, but I think "The Reduction of Hindsight Bias in Testing" may be too wordy and too specific to Testing. Maybe consider doing "Attempts to Decrease Hindsight Bias", or something more concise than that. I like your idea to switch around the order of the paragraph to make it more clear -- explaining how to decrease the bias in testing and then stating that other attempts have failed. If you can find concrete examples of researchers trying to eliminate the bias and failing, those would be great to include. Also, the line about the Causal Model Theory is pretty confusing without knowledge of what it is. This line should either be removed, more explanation given, or at least a link added that redirects you to a page about the Causal Model Theory  Psy250 jes85 (talk) 17:43, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  The "Elimination" Section 

message: Overall, this section needs more clarification on what constitutes "less-degraded", "moderately-degraded" or "highly-degraded" words in order for the reader to fully comprehend the experiment. Additionally, it is evident that individuals (whether speakers or listeners) overestimate their abilities in their respective roles. However, it needs to be clearer if this overestimation in all scenarios (speaking and listening) that then leads to this feeling of inevitability is in fact the auditory distraction being discussed that causes the auditory hindsight bias.
Jmt59 (talk) 20:28, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Auditory Distractions 

message: Parts of the introduction comes off as unclear. Looking at your source for the second sentence, I see the idea you want to get across. However, the subject of the sentence is unclear when you refer to the "designs, processes, contexts, and situations." In order to get the idea across that many studies had been done to assess hindsight bias using those four things, I would suggest rewording the sentence to say "It is a multifaceted phenomenon that has been observed through different studies using different designs, processes, contexts, and situations." Also, the third sentence seems a little forced, since it is very similar to the introductory sentence in the third citation. Perhaps leaving this idea out could free up the introduction to a little more elaboration on the examples given. Ackelleher17 (talk) 02:20, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggested Improvement for the Introduction 

message: This section may become misleading. A reader may read this and think that hindsight bias is responsible for these patient deaths. Especially from the following passage, some of these facts may need further clarification of how hindsight bias is important in the field of medicine. I disagree with the need for the following passage to be included in the paragraph, since it has little to do with hindsight bias itself because priming comes before diagnosis and hindsight bias comes after.
Physicians who are primed with a possible diagnosis before evaluating the symptoms of a patient themselves are more likely to arrive at the primed diagnosis than physicians who were only given the symptoms of the patient.
I would instead change the last two sentences to the following:
According to Harvard Medical Practice Studies, 44,000–98,000 deaths in the United States each year are a result of safety incidents within the healthcare system.[39] Many of these incidents were not preventable, but were considered preventable after the fact, providing an example for hindsight bias.
I disagree with some of the other claims in this paragraph, especially the claim that "studies of injury or death rates as a result of error and virtually all incident review procedures used in healthcare today fail to control for hindsight bias, severely limiting the generalizability and integrity of the research." I would not use such strong claims against the research by calling its integrity "severely limited." Ackelleher17 (talk) 03:01, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the changes you have made are really good. The paragraph is not misleading after taking out some of those sentences. The last 3-4 sentences are informative, but I would suggest maybe combining them or making it more concise. Maybe target the last 2 sentences, "The safety management strategy tries to identify possible constraints when analyzing the decision making process throughout that case. This strategy relies much less on hindsight, which makes it less subject to hindsight bias (yet not immune to error)." It may help to do the same thing you did for the error elimination strategy by putting all the information in one sentence or trimming it a little bit. "The safety management strategy relies less on hindsight (less subject to hindsight bias) and identifies possible constraints during the decision making process of that case. However, it is not immune to error." Jh470 (talk) 06:07, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Healthcare Section under Examples 

message: I noticed that the schizophrenia section needs a little work. Perhaps one can completely remove the very first sentence of the second paragraph, as it seems like an out-of-place inclusion of the definition. Also, grammar- and syntax-wise it should be edited for more fluency.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cnwobu (talk • contribs) 12:56, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Schizophrenia (Duke, Sp 2016) 

message: Three sections in a row there is "The Role of Surprise, The Role of Age, and The Role of Personality". If these 3 could start off with a sub-title introducing what is about to be expressed it would be easier to identify for the readers. Also a brief paragraph explaining how there can be different roles within hindsight bias would be a perfect lead in for the 3 roles expressed. TJ3Rahming (talk) 18:43, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion for the roles 

message: I think the topics of the Examples paragraphs have good material in them however it is located all the way at the bottom of the page. I think moving that section higher up would allow people to fully comprehend the concept of hindsight bias. In addition, I think more examples can be added outside of the judicial system and the medical field such as some more basic examples that occur in normal everyday life; perhaps and example with a student exhibiting hindsight bias after taking an exam or something of that sort. Qharris232 (talk) 19:08, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Suggested Changes for Examples 

message: I know that there has been a lot of discussion of the definition of hindsight bias and the content of the lede.   And after all of that discussion, my sense is that the concept remains poorly defined and the lede is awkwardly phrased, difficult to understand, and not very helpful to a general audience.  I propose the following (with the inclusion of sources in several places of course).  I tried to keep as much of the current lede as possible while editing it for clarity and accessibility.
"Hindsight bias, also known as the knew-it-all-along effect, refers to the inclination to perceive events that have already occurred as having been more predictable than they actually were before they took place. As a result, people often believe, after an event has occurred, that they would have predicted, or perhaps even would have known with a high degree of certainty, what the outcome of an event would be before it had happened.  Hindsight bias may cause distortions of our memories of what we knew and/or believed before an event occurred, and is a significant source of overconfidence regarding out ability to predict the outcomes of future events.  Examples of hindsight bias can be seen in the writings of historians describing outcomes of battles, physicians recalling clinical trials, and in judicial systems as individuals attribute responsibility on the basis of the supposed predictability of accidents."
Comments before I make the change?Regutten (talk) 19:03, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Change the lede

message: The first paragraph under the "Factors" heading is totally out of place.  It has to be either deleted or moved (because it doesn't focus on a "factor")
Much of the subsection "Affected bias" also doesn't fit under the "Factors" heading.  Moreover, the term "Affected bias" itself doesn't make sense.  I assume the proper term here would be "Affect bias".
So -- my plan (contingent upon any feedback I get here) is to:
1.  Delete the first paragraph under "Factors" -- and move some reference to that study to the section on medical decision making.
2.  Change the title of the "Affected bias" subsection to "Affect bias", then edit the first paragraph to improve its comprehensibility, and delete the second and third paragraphs from this subsection, moving some of the information from the third paragraph into a new major section called  "Visual Hindsight Bias".  The second paragraph will simply be deleted (in its current form it contributes nothing to the usefulness of the page for understanding hindsight bias). Regutten (talk) 19:14, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: The "Factors" section needs improvement

message: The section "Factors" contained a number of oddly placed brackets around seemingly random words in the text, the way they are often used in quotes in order to clarify the meaning of the quote by supplying words that are inferred from the context of the quote.
However, the sentences in question did not appear as quotations in the text of this article. My best guess would be that the text has been copy/pasted from a quote on another website without making it clear that it is a quote.
Either way, I have removed the brackets, as they made zero sense in this article.
Nikolaj1905 (talk) 10:55, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Brackets