Motivational influences on the strength of the hindsight bias

Stefan Schwarz () and Dagmar Stahlberg ()
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Stefan Schwarz: Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Postal: L 13, 15, D-68131 Mannheim
Dagmar Stahlberg: Lehrstuhl fuer Sozialpsychologie, Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Postal: Seminargebaeude A5, D-68131 Mannheim

No 02-33, Sonderforschungsbereich 504 Publications from Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Universität Mannheim, Sonderforschungsbereich 504, University of Mannheim

Abstract: The hindsight bias represents the tendency of people to falsely believe that they would have predicted the outcome of an event, once the outcome is known. The present study investigates whether the strength of the hindsight bias depends on the self-esteem relevance and the quality of the event predicted. In three experiments students participated in a fictitious job interview either as the interviewee (high self-esteem relevance) or as an external observer (low self-esteem relevance). After the interview was finished, they either received positive, negative or no feedback according the interviewee´s performance in the interview. Taken together, results indicated that interviewees showed a weaker hindsight bias than observers, when performance feedback was negative. On the other hand, interviewees showed a stronger hindsight bias than observers, when performance feedback was positive. Thus, it can be concluded that self-esteem enhancing and protecting motives are able to moderate the strength of the hindsight bias. Therefore it might be premature to completely deny motivational influences on the hindsight bias.

Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2002-04-15
Note: Financial support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, SFB 504, at the University of Mannheim, is gratefully acknowledged.
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