hindsight bias

the tendency, after an event has occurred, to overestimate the extent to which the outcome could have been foreseen. Hindsight bias stems from (a) cognitive inputs—people selectively recall information consistent with what they now know to be true; (b) metacognitive inputs—people may misattribute their ease of understanding an outcome to its assumed prior likelihood; and (c) motivational inputs—people have a need to see the world as orderly and predictable.

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Psychology term of the day

November 28th 2024

fatigue effect

a decline in performance on a prolonged or demanding research task that is generally attributed to the participant becoming tired or bored with the task. The fatigue effect is an important consideration when administering a lengthy survey or test in which participants’ performance may worsen simply due to the challenges of an extended task.