“I knew it all along” phenomenon
A couple of days ago, I read an interview of an entrepreneur whom I know well personally. According to his words, his company developed almost linearly, from success to success. He told a journalist that the idea of the business crossed his mind many years ago and hasn’t changed much since then. I know that’s not true — he had his ups and downs, great insights, and stupid mistakes. But now he is sure that he knew everything all along. And he does it not because he is a liar.
Britannica defines hindsight bias as “the tendency, upon learning an outcome of an event — such as an experiment, a sporting event, a military decision, or a political election — to overestimate one’s ability to have foreseen the outcome. It is colloquially known as the “I knew it all along phenomenon”. In one of the experiments, participants were asked to make predictions about a result of an upcoming event. Some believed in one possible outcome, some in another. Several months afte…