(When) Is Hindsight Bias a By-Product of Knowledge Updating?

• Applicants: Dr. Julia Groß; Professor Dr. Thorsten Pachur
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 438517682

Learning about a fact or the outcome of an event makes it difficult to accurately assess in retrospect one’s prior (naïve) state of knowledge. Specifically, in hindsight people overestimate what they knew in foresight. This hindsight bias is a robust phenomenon and the topic of numerous empirical studies as well as review articles and meta-analyses (e.g., Christensen-Szalanski & Willham, 1991; Groß & Pachur, 2019; Hawkins & Hastie, 1990). Various accounts have been proposed to explain hindsight bias (for overviews, see Blank, Musch, & Pohl, 2007; Roese & Vohs, 2012). Most of these accounts view hindsight bias as a result of biased information processing (i.e., a cognitive illusion). The goal of our research program is to test the proposal that hindsight bias is, by contrast, a by-product of adaptive knowledge updating (Hoffrage, Hertwig, & Gigerenzer, 2000). Our focus is on numerical estimation, which is one of the most common types of task used in hindsight-bias research. To enable a test of the knowledge-updating proposal in this context, we propose an integrative conceptual framework highlighting and elaborating the previously overlooked link between paradigms investigating hindsight bias and research on seeding effects (Brown & Siegler, 1993; 1996), which reflect processes of knowledge updating in real-world estimation. We develop a new paradigm to test and quantify hindsight bias and seeding effects in real-world estimation. Further, we contrast knowledge updating as one potential mechanism of hindsight bias with an alternative mechanism, anchoring-and-adjustment, and test boundary conditions that might influence the relative contribution of both mechanisms. Identifying the underlying mechanisms of hindsight bias will not only illuminate the potential adaptivity of this effect, but it might also foster a better understanding of the relationship between proposed models of judgment and behavioral phenomena (i.e., theory integration).

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: United Kingdom
• Cooperation Partner: Privatdozent Dr. Hartmut Blank