"I knew we would win": Hindsight bias for favorable and unfavorable team decision outcomes.

Abstract

This study examined hindsight bias for team decisions in a competitive setting in which groups attempted to outperform each other. It was anticipated that, because of self-serving mechanisms, individuals would show hindsight bias only when decision outcomes allowed them to take credit for their own team's success or to downgrade another team for being unsuccessful. MBA students playing a market simulation game made hindsight estimates regarding the likelihood that either their own or another team would perform well. Consistent with a self-serving interpretation, when decision outcomes were favorable individuals evaluating their own team, but not those evaluating another, showed hindsight bias. When outcomes were unfavorable individuals evaluating their own team did not show hindsight bias, but those evaluating another team did. Discussion focuses on implications of hindsight bias in team decision-making settings.

The Role of Surprise in Hindsight Bias: A Metacognitive Model of Reduced and Reversed Hindsight Bias

“…This can be demonstrated by looking at a series of experiments by Hoch and Loewenstein (1989). Their studies have been cited by some authors (e.g., Hawkins & Hastie, 1990;Louie, 1999;Louie et al, 2000;Pohl, 1998) as evidence for the hypothesis that surprising outcomes (of difficult or misleading items) will result in less or even reversed hindsight bias and by others for the opposite hypothesis that surprising outcomes will lead to a stronger hindsight bias (e.g., Pezzo, 2003). Interestingly, both positions are correct and the series of experiments offers evidence for both hypotheses.…”

“…(2) A reversed hindsight bias has also been predicted and found when the outcome was of high personal relevance and at the same time highly self-threatening (see Louie, 1999;Louie, Role of Surprise in Hindsight Bias 4 4 Curren, & Harich, 2000;Mark & Mellor, 1991;Stahlberg, Hintz, & Schwarz, 2005;. The aim of this paper is to propose a new model explaining the role of surprise in hindsight bias, therefore, we will focus on the first condition, and previous research on this topic is reviewed in detail in the next paragraph.…”

Not the same old hindsight bias: Outcome information distorts a broad range of retrospective judgments

“…Indeed, Campbell and Tesser (1983) demonstrated that the magnitude of the hindsight bias was positively correlated with scores on a measure of social desirability. In another demonstration, people playing a market simulation game displayed the hindsight bias only when the outcome for their team was favorable (i.e., the firm's performance improved), suggesting that people claim to have "known it all along" when doing so enhances their image as a successful decision maker (Louie et al, 2000, see also, e.g., Hölzl et al, 2002. In general, however, support for motivational explanations of the hindsight bias is weak (e.g., Christensen-Szalanski & Willham, 1991;Pohl & Hell, 1996).…”

“…In many of these experiments, people make judgments about uncertain outcomes rather than answer questions about general knowledge. For example, the hindsight bias has been demonstrated in evaluations of sexual assault victims (Carli, 1999;Janoff-Bulman, Timko, & Carli, 1985), football games (Roese & Maniar, 1997), jury decision-making (e.g., Casper, Benedict, & Kelly, 1988;Hastie, Schkade, & Payne, 1999;Robbennolt & Sobus, 1997;Stallard & Worthington, 1998), "gustatory judgments" (Pohl, Schwarz, Sczesny, & Stahlberg, 2003), gambling behavior (Baboushkin, Hardoon, Derevensky, & Gupta, 2001), competitive team decision making (Louie, Curren, & Harich, 2000), determinations of therapist negligence (LaBine & LaBine, 1996), economic expectations (Hölzl, Kirchler, & Rodler, 2002), predictions of the likelihood of violent behavior (Cannon & Quinsey, 1995), and medical diagnoses (Arkes, Wortmann, Saville, & Harkness, 1981).…”

Controllability and hindsight components: Understanding opposite hindsight biases for self-relevant negative event outcomes

“…Instead of believing in hindsight that they knew this all along, as a strictly cognitive view of hindsight bias would hold (unless the outcome is surprising-in which case, hindsight bias can be attenuated or even reversed; see Müller & Stahlberg, 2007, for an overview), quite a number of studies have shown that hindsight is reduced and often eliminated under such conditions (Louie, 1999(Louie, , 2005Louie, Curren, & Harich, 2000;Mark, Boburka, Eyssell, Cohen, & Mellor, 2003;Mark & Mellor, 1991;Pezzo & Beckstead, 2008). Importantly, this holds even if any possibly confounding influence of surprise is controlled for (Louie, 1999).…”