Hindsight Bias: A Cross-Cultural Analysis

Abstract

We examined whether differences found between Japanese and North Americans on a variety of self-serving biases would also be observed for the hindsight bias. In fact, Japanese and Canadians exhibited similar hindsight biases under memory instructions, and Canadians showed only a marginally more pronounced bias than Japanese underhypothetical instructions (where self-serving motivations appear more implicated). We suggest that cultural differences between Japanese and North Americans in distorted cognitions are most pronounced when self-enhancing opportunities become salient.

Cultural Interpretations of Global Information? Hindsight Bias after Reading Wikipedia Articles across Cultures

“…Indeed, two studies found a larger hindsight bias in Asian cultures compared with Western cultures (Choi & Nisbett, ; Yama et al, ). However, there are also findings showing a smaller hindsight bias in Asian cultures (Heine & Lehman, ) and no cultural differences at all (Pohl, Bender, & Lachmann, ). However, both these latter findings were obtained assessing hindsight bias with Almanac questions rather than events, which is fundamentally different because it is based on other mechanisms than causal modeling (Hoffrage, Hertwig, & Gigerenzer, ; Pohl, Eisenhauer, & Hardt, ).…”

Intuitions and Experiments: A Defense of the Case Method in Epistemology

“…Here it is useful to observe that psychologists working on mental state ascription explicitly classify both knowledge 10 In particular, we share a bias known as hindsight or more broadly epistemic egocentrism, a bias which distorts our mindreading of those who occupy a more naïve perspective, including our own more naïve past selves. There had been some suggestions that this bias differs across cultures: for example, one study found that the bias is worse under certain instructions for Western (Canadian) subjects than for Eastern (Japanese) subjects (Heine & Lehman, 1996), while another found greater hindsight on the Eastern (Korean) than on the Western (American) side (Choi & Nisbett, 2000). More comprehensive work has undermined claims of cross-cultural differences in either direction (Pohl, Bender, & Lachmann, 2002).…”

What Can Children Tell Us About Hindsight Bias: A Fundamental Constraint on Perspective–Taking?

“…It also occurs across many domains and paradigms (Blank, Fischer, & Erdfelder, 2003;Bryant & Brockway, 1997;Keysar, Ginzel, & Bazerman, 1995;Mark & Mellor, 1991;Tykocinski, Pick, & Kedmi, 2002). It occurs across cultures (Heine & Lehman, 1996;Pohl, Bender, & Lachmann, 2002) and has been documented in many applied settings (see Guilbault, Bryant, Brockway, &Posavac, 2004, andHawkins & for reviews).…”