ABSTRACT
After learning the outcome of an event, people tend to remember their former predictions incorrectly as being more consistent with the outcome than they really were. This phenomenon is called “hindsight bias” and has been demonstrated in numerous studies, employing a wide range of judgement materials such as general almanac questions (e.g., Fischhoff, 1975; Hell, Gigerenzer, Gauggel, Mall, & Müller, 1988; Pohl, Ludwig, & Ganner, 1999a), political events (e.g., Blank & Fischer, 2000; Powell, 1988), medical diagnosis (Arkes, Wortmann, Saville, & Harkness, 1981), poor nursing performance (Mitchell & Kalb, 1981), rape scenarios (Carli, 1999; Stahlberg, Sczesny, & Schwarz, 1999), team decisions (Louie, Curren, & Harich, 2000), and stock purchase decisions (Louie, 1999). Studies of hindsight bias mostly invoke cognitive explanations, arguing, for example, that hindsight bias is a by-product of adaptive learning (Hoffrage, Hertwig, & Gigerenzer, 2000), or the result of biased reconstruction (e.g., Dehn & Erdfelder, 1998), or memory impairment (e.g. Fischhoff, 1975; Hell et al., 1988). While the influence of cognitive factors has been well demonstrated, hindsight bias might also be governed or moderated by motivational factors. The idea that hopes, fears, wishes, desires, and apprehensions affect judgements is compelling. However, only a few studies have provided evidence for motivational influences (Campbell & Tesser, 1983; Haslam & Jayasinghe, 1995; Hell et al., 1988; Louie, 1999; Louie et al., 2000; Mark & Mellor, 1991; Mark, Boburka, Eyssell, Cohen, & Mellor,
2003-this issue; Pezzo, 2003-this issue; Schwarz, 2001; Stahlberg & Schwarz, 1999; Verplanken & Pieters, 1988). Other studies found no indications for motivational impact (Leary, 1981, 1982; Pohl & Hell, 1996; Pohl, Stahlberg, & Frey, 1999b; Stahlberg, Eller, Romahn, & Frey, 1993; Synodinos, 1986). As a result, it is commonly assumed that motivational influences on the formation of hindsight bias are at most “non-negligible but small” (Hawkins & Hastie, 1990, p. 323; see also Pohl, 1998). One major shortcoming of the investigation of motivational effects on hindsight bias to date has been that the term
Requests for reprints should be sent to Dr Britta Renner, Psychologie, Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universitat Greifswald, FranzMehring-Str. 47, 17487 Greifswald, Germany. Email: renner@uni-greifswald.deThis research was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Grant Schw 208/11-01-03, The Techniker Krankenkasse, Landesvertretung für Berlin und Brandenburg, and the Kommission für Forschung und Wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchs, Freie Universität Berlin. I thank the reviewers Hartmut Blank, Stefan Schwarz, and two anonymous reviewers. I am also grateful to Ulrich Hoffrage, Rüdiger Pohl, Harald Schupp, Wolfgang Hell, Judith Bäβler, Tony Arthur, and Matthias Siemer for their discussion and helpful suggestions on earlier drafts of this paper.
