Mechanisms On The Formation Of Hindsight Bias

Hindsight bias is a tendency to view event outcomes in hindsight as more inevitable or foreseeable than they appeared in foresight. One of great puzzles in this field is mechanisms on the formation of hindsight bias. Though cogniton models, metacognition models and motivation models are developed to explain mechanisms on the foarmation of hindsight bias through information processing, metacognitive experience or motivation perspective, the foarmation of hindsight bias in some specific situations instead of general and comprehensive mechanisms can be explained through each model. Recently, several integrative models have been developed, but they remain deficient and need more careful scrutiny.Main points and deficiencies of these integrative models of hindsight bias were reviewed in the present dissertation. And on these bases, a "surprise-transforming model" of hindsight bias was put forward. Centred on the transformation of surprise during the retrospective estimates, surprise-transforming model embraced the processes of cogniton, metacognition and motivation and build a new relationship between the distinct components of hindsight bias, which made it a general and comprehensive model of hindsight bias. Five hypotheses in relation to four key issues of surprise-transforming model were put forward.In present dissertation, six experiments were conducted to examine these hypotheses. In study 1, two experiments were conducted to verify the phenomenon of hindsight bias and to investigate the relationship of the three components of hindsight bias (i.e. outcome-estimate distortion, impression-of-foreseeability distortion and impression-of-necessity distortion). In study 2, two experiments were conducted to investigate the relationship between initial surprise and sense making druing the formation of hindsight bias. In study 3, one experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of the attribution bias of surprise on the formation of hindsight bias. In study 4, one experiment was conducted to investigate the relationship between self relevancy of events and hindsight bias.The present findings showed that:(1) there is positive correlation between impression-of-foreseeability distortion and outcome-estimate distortion, which is impression-of-foreseeability distortion and outcome-estimate distortion, which is mediated by the estimate of the probability of the outcome; there is positive correlation between impression-of-necessity distortion and the success of sense making. (2) there is negtive correlation between between initial surprise and outcome-estimate distortion of hindsight bias and positive correlation between the success of sense making and outcome-estimate distortion of hindsight bias; the effects of initial surprise and the success of sense making on hindsight bias are mutually independent. (3) The success of sense making has no effect on the estimate of initial surprise after the end the sense making process; there is positive correlation between the success of sense making and the accidental attribution of surprise; there is positive correlation between the accidental attribution of surprise and outcome-estimate distortion of hindsight bias. (4) The controllability of the antecedent conditions which cause the outcome is the key factor affects the performance of hindsight bias to a self-relevant event. If a negtive outcome is caused by a controllable condition, compared to hindsight bias in non-self-relevan event, hindsight bias in self-relevant event will become more prominent, witch is known as retroactive pessimism; if a negtive outcome is caused by a uncontrollable condition, compared to hindsight bias in non-self-relevan event, hindsight bias in self-relevant event will become more subtle, witch is known as defensive processing.