RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Hindsight ≠ foresight: the effect of outcome knowledge on judgment under uncertainty
JF Quality and Safety in Health Care
JO Qual Saf Health Care
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd
SP 304
OP 311
DO 10.1136/qhc.12.4.304
VO 12
IS 4
A1 Fischhoff, B
YR 2003
UL http://qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/12/4/304.abstract
AB One major difference between historical and nonhistorical judgment is that the historical judge typically knows how things turned out. In Experiment 1, receipt of such outcome knowledge was found to increase the postdicted likelihood of reported events and change the perceived relevance of event descriptive data, regardless of the likelihood of the outcome and the truth of the report. Judges were, however, largely unaware of the effect that outcome knowledge had on their perceptions. As a result, they overestimated what they would have known without outcome knowledge (Experiment 2), as well as what others (Experiment 3) actually did know without outcome knowledge. It is argued that this lack of awareness can seriously restrict one’s ability to judge or learn from the past.