In cognitive psychology, the term Hindsight Bias is used to describe a specific cognitive bias that occurs when a person or people change their opinion or attitude after a certain incident has occurred. This involves overestimating the predictability of this incident. In this process, the corresponding memories are often distorted in the new way of thinking. This is referred to as a retrograde bias or Recall bias.

This effect means that after an intense or far-reaching incident, people are no longer able to assess the circumstances and reasons that led to the incident as they would have done before the incident. In retrospect, they often do not understand why the incident was not foreseeable. A common explanation for this is that knowledge of the incident changes the interpretation and evaluation of all related facts and thus shifts the entire cognitive «coordinate system» to the incident.

Origin

The phenomenon of hindsight bias was first investigated by Baruch Fischhoff at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in 1975.

  • Fischhoff, B., & Beyth, R. (1975). I knew it would happen: Remembered probabilities of once-future things. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 13(1), 1–16.
  • Roese, N. J., & Vohs, K. D. (2012). "Hindsight bias". Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7(5), 411–426.

Application in UX and UI design

The Hindsight Bias is difficult to avoid because it occurs unconsciously. People tend to reconstruct their memories in a more consistent and logical way than they actually were. In UX and UI design, the Hindsight Bias can lead to misinterpretations in user research and product development.

Impact on the User Experience

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Further information