How often have you caught yourself thinking, "I knew it!"? This isn't always genius, but a cognitive bias known as the "hindsight bias." It kills your ability to learn, preventing …
How often have you caught yourself thinking, "I knew it!"? This isn't always genius, but a cognitive bias known as the "hindsight bias." It kills your ability to learn, preventing you from seeing your real mistakes and absorbing your lessons.
In 1975, psychologist Baruch Fischhoff demonstrated how, following Nixon's 1972 visit to China, participants overestimated their "anticipations" of success. Their initial estimates changed dramatically in retrospect, blocking error analysis and genuine learning.
Thus, after the 2008 financial crisis, experts and investors "realized" in retrospect that Lehman Brothers' collapse was inevitable. However, before September 15, 2008, few predicted the collapse, which distorts the lessons of the past.
Daniel Kahneman, winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics, describes in "Thinking, Fast and Slow" how this effect interferes with the calibration of our judgment. We lose the incentive to test hypotheses if we "already know it all."
To truly learn, actively record your predictions before events. Comparing them with reality is the only path to honest assessment and growth. Otherwise, your brain will forever remain a "genius after the fact," repeating the same mistakes.
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