Why Psychology Tells Us What We Already Know
Hindsight bias skews our interpretation of events and information, making it seem like they were predictable or just not that surprising. This bias can cause some real problems, but the good news is, once you are aware of it, there are some things you can do to reduce its effects.
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Пікірлер: 221
Psychology: *says a thing* The response to it: we already knew that! Psychology: Yes, but actually no, you don’t.
@MarkSmith-tu9qr
4 жыл бұрын
😂 guilty af 😂
@manguy01
4 жыл бұрын
No, but actually yes. We did. Most psychology studies are to confirm things we _think_ we know. Important findings are often when something we _think_ we know, turns out to be false. But if it's proven true, now we _know_ we know. Which is useful and very valid. Except for those cases where a study is sloppy or assumes the conclusion. Which is most of them. Expensive assumptions aren't any more valid than armchair ones.
@360.Tapestry
4 жыл бұрын
usually, it confirms something i've suspected, intuited, or observed in passing but hadn't dedicated the time to develop the framework to improve/avoid/optimize it (whichever is most desireable) because that takes weeks/months/years to iterate (trial & error)
@michaelwhatspoppin8256
9 ай бұрын
@manguy01 Or we really did know something psychology is telling us we hadn't. If a person's tells you "hey, I already knew that" and you respond telling them they didn't and they are falling prey to hindsight bias, than it's a slippery slope to nobody being right about anything that isn't confirmed already by a 'professional '.
@MoskusMoskiferus1611
8 ай бұрын
Psychology: We want to make it Official
Another important thing to consider when thinking "I knew that already!" is: no, you didn't. You _believed_ it, possibly, but you didn't know it. That's a key aspect of the process of science.
@vaszgul736
4 жыл бұрын
Something that is very good to remember! People including myself are often surprised that we don't know a lot about yawning or why cats purr, etc etc. It seems obvious because we know hypotheses and we have been taught this or that. But science has to prove that thing with real data and results that can be replicated, with control groups, and investigated pretty heavily before we can for sure make claims about why even the simplest things happen and how they work. Even that seems obvious once you know about the scientific method! But it isn't always.
@TreespeakerOfTheLand
4 жыл бұрын
KZread: Recognised patterns are not necessarily correct. Everyone else: We already knew that Me: *cries*
@nasrinshanavas5500
3 жыл бұрын
I was like well duh obviously then i realised-
Me: *has severe social anxiety* My family: omg what's wrong with you ? *Said to me over the course of 16 years* Me: *gets diagnosed with social anxiety and tells my family* My family: ohh we knew that, it's so obvious 🤦🤦🤦🤦
@darrellcole6311
4 жыл бұрын
That is what happened to me when i came out to my family.
@ketikatz
4 жыл бұрын
@@darrellcole6311 I have borderline too and they really don't wanna accept that. Like they just wanna believe I was just going through a faze and that it'll just "go away" when that isn't how anxiety works not is it how a personality disorder works. Honestly I feel I'd have far better progress on it if my family was just a little bit more supportive
@mooselove
4 жыл бұрын
Ketikatz actually this IS how personality disorders work. They aren’t the same as mood disorders like your anxiety. The BPD is maladaptive issues that you can change yourself (sometimes it happens with age, sometimes worsens with age). It’s not a chemical imbalance like a mood disorder.
@the_hanged_clown
4 жыл бұрын
@@ketikatz borderline what?
@Starfals
4 жыл бұрын
Oh thats sad and so typical at the same time xD
This is really excellent advice for evaluating everything in life: whatever you think is true, consider whether the opposite might be true too. This is a great way to balance all-or-nothing thinking, neutralize overreactions, and clear-up misunderstandings ... Are you secretly teaching people how to think, Hank!? Hooray!
@qlifee
4 жыл бұрын
You spoke my mind 👍
*This is the reason why economists are so good at explaining the past, but so bad at explaining the future.*
@celinak5062
4 жыл бұрын
"Lunatic premises lead to mad conclusions."
@NoMoreForeignWars
4 жыл бұрын
This is why I write down my all my market predictions so I recognize where I went wrong and why. On 2/14 I figured that coronavirus was unstoppable and would tank the market. Back then everyone was saying it's just the flu bro, but the academic research suggested otherwise.
@jerry3790
4 жыл бұрын
Bob Woodward They were right about it being just the flu. You were right about it tanking the markets. The stock market is illogical
@richardgrier8968
4 жыл бұрын
You can't "explain" the future, you can only make predictions. The past helps us make those predictions, but things, like the economy, are often too complicated to make 100% acurate predictions. Could economists have predicted the economic impact we are seeing now from a novel corona virus outbreak?
@NoMoreForeignWars
4 жыл бұрын
@@jerry3790 The flu doesnt require mechanical ventilation for 3 to 5% of those affected. Do some actual research. This crash isn't over yet. I'm waiting for the vix to hit 60 to sell.
Hindsight bias is true, I never knew what it meant before this video, but I realize what it truly means after you explained it.
@xRockLobster75x
4 жыл бұрын
This video confirmed what I believed, but I already knew what hindsight bias is because it's so obvious.
@the_hanged_clown
4 жыл бұрын
@@xRockLobster75x obviously
@ishakrahuya
4 жыл бұрын
I found you here again
@starletd6819
4 жыл бұрын
Ive seen you before in the comments, I think on a gloom BitLife video
@360.Tapestry
4 жыл бұрын
research usually investigates and codifies what many people intuitively conjecture from anecdotal observation
Did you do this episode because Hindsight is 2020? 🤔
@adkinsyum
4 жыл бұрын
Womp womp That's pretty funny 😂
@oakpoacher433
4 жыл бұрын
I thought hindsights was 50/50.......I swear to God I did.
@LimeDude9999
4 жыл бұрын
Well played!
@emilysha418
4 жыл бұрын
Underrated comment.
@Fitten06
3 жыл бұрын
Slow clap. 👏 👏 👏
*Watches video* Well, that was kinda obvious...
@youmaycallmeken
4 жыл бұрын
and so was your comment. (Reading it, makes it obvious.)
@Fitten06
3 жыл бұрын
Oh hey - I see whatchya did there... 😏
Its the old "why didnt i think of that" issue, it all seems obvious once its laid out in front of you, but someone else is always the billionaire from the simple invention/idea, dooough. 😤😂
@the_hanged_clown
4 жыл бұрын
no they be stealing my intellectual property. I don't know how bc I've never voiced them, but somehow they've crawled up into my head and stolen my intellectual property!
@PersonsUnknown
4 жыл бұрын
It is complicated
Well, in hindsight it's pretty obvious why people would feel like they already knew the outcome.
@donfields1234
4 жыл бұрын
Lol
This shows up a LOT after tragic freak accidents, usually strangers blaming the parents for not preventing a super rare thing that no one actively tries to prevent.
Even if so, if the information already is known it's still important to challenge or prove what we already know because it's imperative to know for sure. After all we don't know the truth if we don't find out and that can be very scary and have some dangerous consequences in the real world.
Lawyer perspective: I am happy to reassure you all that judges in North America are well aware of the old saying "hindsight is 20/20". Meaning that they will try not to judge people's actions based on the ultimate outcome, but based on the information they had at the decision-making stage.
I am naturally *very* introspecive, so I have noticed this in the past where i could feel it was information i knew but I also knew I hadn't drawn that conclusion on my own it was a set of dots I had, that I never connected even thoe it felt so obvious I have found it fascinating for years, and very informative tbh like if ur trying to go for ur first kiss with ur SO kiss their cheek, cheek is not so hard, but it is close enough to the lips that they will make the assumption and if they lean toward u it means they want it if they lean away, well u get the picture if they dont want it, the time just isnt right but when u know they want it, it gives u *alot* of courage making first kisses alot easier to get right imo it is super obvious but without being clearly told I would never have used that info meaningfully I never thought other people would see it as a bias like this very interesting and a lil scary
@catmann8276
4 жыл бұрын
yes
Turns out scishow psych is a better self improvement channel than actual self improvement channels. Kinda obvious considering its about psychology. Heh.
I'm dissapointed that he didn't say "hindsight isn't always 20/20" at the end and said "reliable" instead
@christelheadington1136
4 жыл бұрын
Yep, you saved me some typing.
@graceyang9022
4 жыл бұрын
I was waiting for it too :(
@MartyAlaniz
4 жыл бұрын
I actually liked the fact that he didn’t say that!
@christelheadington1136
4 жыл бұрын
@@MartyAlaniz -Yeah, yeah, You could see it not coming.
@LukenUSee
4 жыл бұрын
It's 2020 and many cars now have rear facing cameras, so hindsight is very common.
Interesting, I've always called this phenomenon (something I have observed about my self) adding language to abstraction- people tell you a conclusion/claim and the abstract concept of that idea in the background of your mind is suddenly given language- this opens the flood gates for thinking about this idea further and seems like the obvious conclusion (because its an abstract hypothesis/conclusion already in your mind), even though you hadn't actually come to that language dependant conclusion yet.
*To be fair*, there are some actual examples of this in the literature. I once stumbled across a study that measured whether or not de-beaking in chickens is painful, which found (surprise surprise) that it _was_ painful. I just couldn't roll my eyes any harder.
Just one of the reasons I try to avoid throwing around words like "should". Often if I catch myself saying it and stop to think, I realize that there's more going on than I initially realized.
My favorite reply to "That's so intuitive/obvious! Why would people waste money on studying this?" is picking a study that found the the opposite of an "intuitive" conclusion and then asking them how they could know that the intuitive conclusion was wrong without studying it.
Thanks for putting a label on this thing, I knew it existed I just didn't know how to talk about it. I see it at work all the time.
I tend to read things and go, "Huh, that makes sense" rather than go, "Well we already knew that! " because, whatever the info was, tied things together logically that I never took to a final conclusion. I had all the pieces and never added them together.
I knew this episode would change my bias.
I feel like I experience hindsight bias while watching SciShow videos…
It sounded like you said, "thanks for watching this episode of sci-show..psych!" While doing the ol' down low too slow maneuver.
"Thanks for watching this episode of sci-show.. Psyche!"
You guys can make whole useful series out of this topic: a bias, how to spot it, and how to deal with it. What say?
Thank you for another Episode of Sci-Show.
That was pretty obvious, really...
Great video
I remamber that one study that concluded that eating more makes you fat. Took years to figure it out. Hindsight bias that.
@TosiakiS
4 жыл бұрын
Correlation maybe, cause is a little trickier. And it in recent years, we've figured that this may not even be true-what matters is not volume or even energy content of food, but type of energy content, such as carbohydrates or fat.
Fascinating!
As a neurodivergent with ADHD/Autism I never have felt like this was an issue for me. In fact, I’m usually the “think of all options” devils advocate - coming across as a protagonist, but I’m really exploring all possibilities, perspectives and so on. For example, I trained officers on the force continuum and went on to complete my CJA degree eventually becoming an expert witness in which I compared the actions of the officer against the continuum to determine if force was justified. The hardest part of that to remember and explain to others is these standards are based on what an officer knew at the time of the incident, not what we discovered after the fact. But also, officers are trained to know these things to know when force is justified or not. I was very good at this because of my ability to consider all possibilities at the time of the incident rather than basing my opinions on all the discovery. I wonder if the absence of this kind of bias is higher in neurodivergent individuals 🤔
Good stuff.
It's ironic. Watching this video makes it seem obvious that hindsight bias is a thing and one that should be considered when passing judgement. Yet I, for one, haven't really been applying it consciously when evaluating situations before. I will endeavour to do so from now on :P
Oh wow I've been doing that consider the opposite thing for my whole life and people were always like "but that is not what happened so.... what's your point" and so on and so on. Thanks for confirming what I already knew SciShow! Wait a second...
This is just what I needed to hear to humble me :)
Sometimes you have to confirm the common suspicion, everybody thinks thing A does this but no one has confirmed it so you gotta spend some research hours confirming it. It seems silly in hindsight but having confirmation solidifies suspicion into fact.
A great explanation of this bias.
very interesting
Every "science" website or even news story about science have comments sections filled with people that think because "it was obvious" that they are therefore smarter and more knowledgeable that those darn wasteful scientists. So the combination of hindsight bias and personal insecurities on how smart or knowledgable they are will lead to complaints about scientists and scientific studies. Really, having the actual data on these "obvious facts" is important and valuable. What if scientists and decision-makers just assumed they know the obvious outcomes and then make a decision that hurts someone partly due to lack of data? In these cases hindsight bias will cause us to complaint that it was *obvious* that scientists should have done the studies, right?
My optometrist told me to put ketchup on my eyes. He said Heinz sight is 20/20.
2020, the year we talk about hindsight 😎
It's ironic that despite the name, a lot of things works contradictory to common senses and they're often the least reliable to follow.
• 1:33 - I can't help but think this might be connected (pun half-intended) to the cause of dájà vu. 🤔 • 5:09 - Wait, so hindsight _isn't_ 20/20? 🤨
Looking back on it, I'm pretty sure I'm guilty of this!
I knew this was going to be one of the best episodes ever. No, wait...
Hindsight bias bias is also a thing. Blaming the benefit of hindsight for the shame of your obvious failures.
God bless you captain hindsight!
"Hindsight is always 20/20 But lookin back it's still a bit fuzzy"
Sometimes what everybody knows is actually wrong.
@HECKproductions
4 жыл бұрын
ok you either didnt watch the video or you didnt understand it give it another shot dude
It’s kinda crazy that learning about hindsight bias causes hindsight bias
Missed the chance to say that "hindsight isn't always 20/20."
Hindsight bias, the true meaning between the phrase "hindsight is 20/20". It's easy to assign blame and say with certainty why you think something has happened after it's occurred. In the moment nothing is as clear cut and many factors play into decisions and actions of people that aren't possible to avoid until some critical threshold has been achieved. That's why safe work procedures and guidelines are put in place at high-risk jobs and activities to prevent the slip of a mind from causing a loss of life, or a blind spot for a thief to take advantage of.
it's so easy to say, "well, that's obvious," after someone has already pointed it out. we've all sat in classes where the teacher asks a general and obvious question, and one after the other, people who voluntarily raise their hand to answer get it not just wrong but far from even the right solar system. once someone provides the correct answer, everyone's exclaims, "why did we make it so hard?"
We all have 20/20 hindsight, don't we?
@christelheadington1136
4 жыл бұрын
If only for this year.
I read Fichhoff’s original work of the first description of hindsight bias (1975) and though “well of course people who know the outcome will overestimate their probabilities”. Then I realized that THAT’S HINDSIGHT BIAS. Long story short: my master’s degree is replicating and extending the findings of Fischhoff in HSB using Open Science in the context of psychiatry. On the shoulders of the giants they say. So here I go.
@threethrushes
7 ай бұрын
Pythagorus. Newton. Einstein. And you.
It's also true about some simple innovations (or improved procedures). It's obvious once you see it. But if it's so obvious then why didn't we have it before? (People say, "Why didn't I think of that.")
dude I'm sending a link to this video to my boss his hind sight is 20/20
i love you man :)
Damn this is so true
That title needs a "Y'know?" at the end there.
Anyone what to see some hindsight bias examples, please feel free to go to any of the covid-19 videos chat section and you will find people who exhibit hindsight bias, especially the video talk about China. All of a sudden everyone turns into a professional health expert and virology expert. Everyone seems to know what covid-19 is and also knowing the right approach to handle covid-19.
Is this the reason it's so hard to 'think outside the box'? Dismissing something that seems too obvious.
AAAA THIS IS SO USEFUL OMG EDIT: THANK YOU PSYSHOW PEOPLE
Well obviously hindsight bias is common occurrence, we didn't needed a video to realise that 😉
Link to book?
Anyone experiencing hindsight bias about hindsight bias while watching this video?
Oh man it's obvious! . . . . . i already knew what Hank just told.:)
A few hours ago I watched a video of you, from 2015 I think about anti-vaccers, and in that video you listed a "sheet" of biases. These are bugs in our brains. Which makes them very interesting. Consider a series of scishow-psych based on all the biases known to science. Maybe bunched up by similarity or frequency in the population.
This reminds me of when I see people who play games that make wrong assumptions of how the world works in game
You know everything you do it and you already know how it ends.
We all already knew this!!!
5:09, You could sya, hindsight isn't always 20-20 missed pun opportunity
This is obvious, why would you make a video about this when you could make one about something interesting?
@brieparker7281
4 жыл бұрын
😂😂
@badsoup8857
4 жыл бұрын
The scary thing is, it does actually seem obvious now
Already watched this video. Why’s it on my feed again
My brain must be broken or fixed or something. I don't feel like anything in psychology is intuitive, especially behavior or sociology. I can sense timestamps in my mind that prevent reverse dependency hierarchies or whatever they're called. Can I be studied in a brain scanner? 🤯
I already knew this.
There was a Marvel superhero named "Hindsight". (i think he was an x-man) His was power was "super" hindsight. And it only worked *after* an event. Say his team made a plan, was deployed onna mission, and the plan failed. Normally Hindsight is just a normal guy, but after said failure, he'd be able look back tell the team exactly what they did wrong and how to fix it next time.
@phoebethegreat6253
4 жыл бұрын
Captain hindsight was a South Park character.
Impulse vs EM pulse. Impulse psyche, impulse current and hystory of hysteresis. Knowing information ain't understanding it. WhY is math related and usually geometry related. It is war between truth and halftruth in halfwolrd. This encourage onl those who are part of system(job, educational etc) and not (free thinking)rebels in world of ideas or doing things in more manageble way which was "obvious"(and never used before). Truth is hard and it stands that black hole eats us all and don't care for worlds. We ourselves are obligated to live double lives for good of us and others. Neither family or friends will be exited about being right more than us. Words sound better when we said them instead of just using other people thoughts. I consider knowing thyself most important and sacred. And it has a price, not everyone is willing to pay.
That bit about thinking the opposite was pretty obvious, ngl. Haha
jury system is the weirdest and the worst thing i could think of in a legal decision.
Bruh i already knew this.
There is a massive amount of hindsight bias going on with criticizing community leaders about the covid-19 response. Now, sure, I agree that the orange man dismissing Obama’s pandemic preparation and being so slow to shut down America was obviously bad decisions, even at the time, but I’m also seeing people (particularly the media) asking the polys why they didn’t enact some measures back in January when we really didn’t grasp the risk that this was to us. For reasons, I was made aware of the unusual flu thing in China back in early January and at the time I just thought it was something going on over there...and when news about it started to appear in the media, everyone else was pretty much doing the same thing I did. No one was asking “why aren’t we closing down restaurants and accelerating manufacturing of health PPE and ventilators?” People were pointing out that Trump had dismissed the pandemic plans but they weren’tasking about the things we now (in April) know needed to be done back then, so why are we now blaming them for not asking the same questions we failed to ask? We (and the media) are using hindsight bias to criticize the polys.
If schools would focus on teaching psychology and philosophy as mandatory subjects, we would have less mental issues.
I already knew all this.
3:48, Consider the following ... wait
all I know is that my foresight needs glasses
I already know the answer, but I'll watch anyway, just to make sure I'm right...lol
So what happens if you are like me and you always get surprised by anything you hear xD! (Alien? :O)
Chile, la alegria ya viene Chile, la alegria ya viene Porque diga lo que diga Yo soy libre de pensar Porque siento que es la hora De ganar la libertad Hasta cuanda ya de abusos Es el tiempo de cambiar Porque basta de miseria Voy a decir que no Vamos a decir que no, oh oh Con la fuerza de mi voz Vamos a decir que no, oh oh Yo lo canto sin temor Vamos decir que no, oh oh Todos juntos a triunfar Vamos a decir que nooo Por la vida y por la paaaaz Vamos a decir que noooo Chile la alegria ya vieeneee Chile la alegria ya vieeneee
*I already knew it*
It's obvious that this episode had to come out in 2020
Hindsight is an exact science.
I knew that. :p
20/20 hindsight vision...
That attitude of "why would you put so much time and effort into this if it's already intuitive" shows a fundamental lack of knowledge of how science works. Corroborating data is *critical* for establishing whether or not something is "true". The more data in favor of a thing, the more likely it is to be the way that things work. Glad this addresses that :)
I actually would not believe the latter about city people, maybe for some statements. But actually many things we say we already knew Is because we extrapolate things from our own experiences. Well I say nothing is black and white and it's more like probability.
Hindsight bias is so obvious, i don't think explaining it is even necessary, of course everyone already intuitively knows about it
It's obvious that AlphaGo can outsmart lee sedol, speaking from 2020, right?! those computer scientist and AI experts knew exactly what deep learning can do, btw where's the blackbox? no, i mean the black box where i put my toys