ABSTRACT
THEORETICAL EXPLANATIONS OF THE HINDSIGHT BIAS Although there is a rich literature on hindsight distortions, the underlying mechanisms are not yet fully understood. What follows is a review of the three main approaches to explaining the hindsight bias: the motivational approach, the memory impairment approach, and the biased reconstruction approach. Since the aim of this paper is to test different predictions
Requests for reprints should be sent to Prof Dr Dagmar Stahlberg, Lehrstuhl Sozialpsychologie, University of Mannheim, 68131 Mannheim, Germany. Email: dstahlberg@sowi.uni-mannheim.deFinancial support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Sonderforschungsbereich 504, at the University of Mannheim, is gratefully acknowledged.We are grateful to Ulrich Hoffrage, Jochen Musch, Rüdiger Pohl, Lioba Werth, and one anonymous reviewer for their helpful and constructive comments on earlier drafts of this article.
