Hindsight bias: the knew-it-all-along phenomenon - Ness Labs

A bias that many people including historians, experts and physicians encounter is the hindsight bias, which makes them think they knew how an event would turn out before it happened. It is the tendency for people to perceive past outcomes as having been more predictable than they actually were.

This phenomenon has been linked to distortion of memory, which unconsciously makes us understand the world based on our outlook.

1. Selective Activation And Reconstructive Anchoring (SARA): Only remembering the information partially and using the same as a memory anchor to reactivate the (altered) memory when new information arrives.
2. Reconstruction After Feedback (RAFT): Taking ‘the best’ approach involves using one’s influence and exposure about a particular knowledge and taking the best answer based on our reconstruction of information, and creating a biased version of the same.
3. Causal Model Theory (CMT): Using a ‘cause reasoning’ for explaining the reality of an event that is different from one’s expectations, mainly by retrieving selective memories.