ABSTRACT
Hindsight bias is revealed when receipt of complimentary information (i.e., the anchor) systematically influences subsequent recollections of previous predictions (i.e., the estimate). It is commonly found that estimates are remembered as being closer to the anchor than they actually had been. The most outstanding feature of hindsight bias is its robustness (cf. Christensen-Szalanski & Willham, 1991; Hawkins & Hastie, 1990). Therefore, manipulations that successfully disrupt the unavoidability and automaticity of the effects of anchor presentation on subsequent recollection of the original estimate are of special interest-they are likely to reveal some of the phenomenon’s crucial underpinnings. Intuitively, discrediting the anchor information should most seriously damage its usefulness and thus reduce hindsight bias (Hasher, Attig, & Alba, 1981): Why should an implausible “hint” be employed to reconstruct a former memory, or why should it be stored in memory and quite possibly interfere with existing bona fide representations? However, the results of studies that investigated the effects of anchors that were different in plausibility suggest that even numerically extreme and subjective implausible anchors may provoke anchoring effects (e.g., Northcraft & Neale, 1987; Pohl, 1998a; Russo & Shoemaker, 1989; Strack & Mussweier, 1997). These studies indicate that hindsight bias is influenced by both the anchor’s numerical extremity and perceived plausibility, which do not necessarily map onto each other. However, the relationship between hindsight bias, anchor distance to the original estimate, and
anchor plausibility remains to be explored in more detail.
