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

Müller, Patrick; Stahlberg, Dagmar

doi:10.1521/soco.2007.25.1.165

Cited by 42 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 49 publications

(71 reference statements)

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“…However, for Pezzo, surprise is a factor for exploring hindsight bias, so he says much less about what the sensemaking process involves; he sketches it as a process of dealing with surprise resulting from expectation-disconfirmation (similar to that found in probability theories). In this literature, others have also suggested that surprise may be used metacognitively as an indicator to trigger a sense-making process to resolve prediction-outcome discrepancies, ultimately affecting hindsight bias (Müller & Stahlberg, 2007;Ofir & Mazursky, 1997). We would argue that the MEB theory presented here significantly fleshes out these suggestions.…”

Section: Several Shades Of Sense-makingmentioning

confidence: 62%

“…In this literature several different views on the relationship between surprise and hindsight bias have been advanced. Some propose that highly-surprising outcomes should reduce hindsight bias, as the effortful search to account for the surprising event produces an awareness that the outcome is very different from what was already known about the event (e.g., Müller & Stahlberg, 2007;Ofir & Mazursky, 1997). In contrast, others have proposed that surprising outcomes should increase hindsight bias (e.g., Schkade & Kilbourne, 1991), while some even argue that surprise has no effect at all (e.g., Carli, 1999;Wasserman, Lempert & Hastie, 1991).…”

Section: Surprise and Hindsight Biasmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Why some surprises are more surprising than others: Surprise as a metacognitive sense of explanatory difficulty

Foster

Keane

2015

Cognitive Psychology

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The UCD community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters! (@ucd_oa) Some rights reserved. For more information, please see the item record link above. TitleWhy some surprises are more surprising than others: Surprise as a metacognitive sense of explanatory difficulty Publisher's statement This is the author's version of a work that was accepted for publication in Cognitive Psychology. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Cognitive Psychology (VOL 81, ISSUE 2015, (2015 Early theories of surprise, including Darwin's, argued that it was predominantly a basic emotion. Recently, theories have taken a more cognitive view of surprise, casting it as a process of "making sense of surprising events". The current paper advances the view that the essence of this sense-making process is explanation; specifically, that people's perception of surprise is a metacognitive estimate of the cognitive work involved in explaining an abnormal event. So, some surprises are more surprising because they are harder toexplain. This proposal is tested in eight experiments that explore how (i) the contents of memory can influence surprise, (ii) different classes of scenarios can retrieve more/less relevant knowledge from memory to explain surprising outcomes, (iii) how partial explanations constrain the explanation process reducing surprise, (iv) how, overall, any factor that acts to increase the cognitive work in explaining a surprising event, results in higher levels of surprise (e.g., task demands to find several rather than just one explanation). Across the present studies, using a many different materials, paradigms and measures, it is consistently and repeatedly found that the difficulty of explaining a surprising outcome is the best predictor for people's perceptions of the surprisingness of events. Alternative accounts of these results are considered, as are future directions for this research.

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Section: Several Shades Of Sense-makingmentioning

confidence: 62%

Section: Surprise and Hindsight Biasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why some surprises are more surprising than others: Surprise as a metacognitive sense of explanatory difficulty

Foster

Keane

2015

Cognitive Psychology

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“…We identified these two groups using measures derived from the hindsight bias literature. Some theories of hindsight bias stress the role of non-cognitive factors such as motivated sense-making (Pezzo & Pezzo, 2007) and metacognitive surprise (Müller & Stahlberg, 2007). Future research should investigate the relative contributions of cognitive and non-cognitive factors to strict versus permissive reasoning.…”

Section: Limitations and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Middle School Students’ Approaches to Reasoning about Disconfirming Evidence

Varma¹,

Boekel²,

Varma³

2018

JEDP

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This study investigated differences in how middle school children reason about disconfirming evidence. Scientists evaluate hypotheses against evidence, rejecting those that are disconfirmed. Although this instant rationality propels empirical science, it works less for theoretical science, where it is often necessary to delay rationality -to tolerate disconfirming evidence in the short run. We used behavioral measures to identify two groups of middle-school children: strict reasoners who prefer instant rationality and quickly dismiss disconfirmed hypotheses, and permissive reasoners who prefer delayed rationality and retain disconfirmed hypotheses for further evaluation. We measured their scientific reasoning performance as well as their cognitive ability and motivational orientation. What distinguished the groups was not overall differences in these variables, but their predictive relation. For strict reasoners, better scientific reasoning was associated with faster processing, whereas for permissive reasoners, better scientific reasoning was associated with more deliberate thinking -slower processing and broader consideration of both disconfirmed and alternate hypotheses. These findings expand our understanding of "normative" scientific reasoning.

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“…The pretest sought to establish that the scenarios were (1) sufficiently negative and (2) unsurprising (since surprise affects hindsight bias in ways unrelated to the focus of our experiment; see Müller & Stahlberg, 2007, for a review). Moreover, (3) the participants should be able to identify themselves with the actor in the actor condition or should perceive the scenario as realistic in the observer condition.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…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).…”

Section: Controllability and Hindsight Components: Understanding Oppomentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Blank

Peters

2010

Memory & Cognition

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There is an anomaly in the hindsight bias literature with respect to hindsight effects obtained after self-relevant negative event outcomes: Whereas some studies have reported reduced hindsight bias, others have shown increases. This article contrasts two explanations for the anomaly. The first points to an influence of perceived control over the event outcome: In hindsight, people decrease foreseeability (and hence, responsibility and blame) for controllable events, but they increase the perceived inevitability of uncontrollable events for coping reasons. The second explanation, derived from a reconception of hindsight bias in terms of separate components (Blank, Nestler, von Collani, & Fischer, 2008), traces the anomaly to differences in the observed hindsight components: Hindsight decreases are to be expected for foreseeability, whereas increases are restricted to the inevitability component. Our experiment (N 210) manipulated controllability and the hindsight component orthogonally and showed strong support for the component explanation, but also some influence of perceived control.

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

Cited by 42 publications

References 49 publications

Why some surprises are more surprising than others: Surprise as a metacognitive sense of explanatory difficulty

Why some surprises are more surprising than others: Surprise as a metacognitive sense of explanatory difficulty

Middle School Students’ Approaches to Reasoning about Disconfirming Evidence

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

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