Once an outcome is known it seems to have been predictable all along.
Fischhoff's 1975 studies: told an outcome, subjects misremembered their own prior probability estimates as closer to it. It is why post-mortems overstate what was knowable and why decision logs are worth keeping.
In practice
- An inquiry concludes the warning signs were obvious, and the report reads the 40 signals that mattered without the 4,000 that did not.
- A manager reviewing a failed hire remembers the interview doubts and not the six candidates they had the same doubts about who worked out.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Decision-making & Reasoning
- Essay
- The catalogue of predictable errors