Today, we’re talking about the Hindsight Bias.
Hindsight bias is the tendency to believe, after an event has occurred, that it was more predictable than it really was. In other words, people convince themselves that they “knew it all along,” even if they had no real way of predicting the outcome beforehand.
For example, imagine someone watching a dance competition. After a particular dancer wins, they say, “I knew they were going to win; they had a certain spark.” But if asked before the competition, they likely wouldn’t have expressed any strong confidence in that dancer. This illustrates hindsight bias: the person believes the result was obvious, even though their prediction only formed after the fact.
This is why we say, "Hindsight is 20/20 vision." It’s easy to feel wise in retrospect, but it can distort how we interpret past events. People often apply this bias to negative outcomes, claiming they “always knew it would go wrong.” Similarly, when someone achieves success, we tend to say we saw it coming—when, in truth, we only recognise the signs once the result is in front of us.
To sum it up:
Hindsight bias clouds our ability to reflect objectively. It gives a false sense of certainty, whether about failures or successes. Recognising this bias helps us stay honest in our reflections and embrace the unpredictability of events. After all, growth—both in dance and in life—requires accepting that we don’t always know how things will unfold until they do.
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