South Florida Substance Abuse Counseling, Psychotherapy » hindsight bias http://www.nickroy.com Sat, 24 Apr 2010 20:29:11 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Describe Hindsight Bias http://www.nickroy.com/2008/02/describe-hindsight-bias/ http://www.nickroy.com/2008/02/describe-hindsight-bias/#comments Sat, 23 Feb 2008 01:56:20 +0000 Nick Roy http://www.nickroy.com/2008/02/23/describe-hindsight-bias/ When interviewing job candidates, many interviewers tend to be overconfident of their gut feelings about the job applicants. The overconfidence stems from past cases where their hunches have proved right in the past. Maybe a job applicant did all of the right things to present a favorable impression, and the interviewer relied heavily on that favorable impression. This bias causes interviewers to reject applicants that have succeeded elsewhere. This is an example of hindsight bias, or the tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it.

It is very easy to find yourself criticizing an outcome after it already happened. After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, commentators mentioned about why the victims in the second tower did not evacuate after the first plane hit. Whether it is the dot com bubble bursting, a recession looming about, a terrorist attack, or even hiring your next employee, we are all subject to being a Monday morning quarterback, also known as hindsight bias.

Send article as PDF to PDF
Share and Enjoy: Print email Sphinn Digg del.icio.us Facebook Mixx Google Bookmarks Faves LinkedIn MySpace NewsVine

]]> http://www.nickroy.com/2008/02/describe-hindsight-bias/feed/ 0