Perspective-taking and hindsight bias: When the target is oneself and/or a peer

Abstract

President Trump reacted to a reporter’s query about the coronavirus outbreak by stating that the reporter was a “lousy journalist”, underscoring the importance of perspective-taking in social exchanges. Egocentrism is the belief that others share the same perspective as your own and hampers the perspective-taking of another naive person. An issue is whether it is seen in hindsight bias where we overestimate what we knew beforehand. Via a foreseeability-inevitability platform, participants were randomly assigned to make self-judgments for problem-solving from a foresight (no answers) or three hindsight (answers) conditions. In two hindsight conditions, participants were asked to ignore or not to ignore the answers. In the last condition, participants predicted for an unfamiliar peer asked to ignore the answers. Next, all participants made judgments again from the perspective of the peer. Predominately in hindsight, participants showed significant changes responding but with an appropriate baseline comparison showed essentially the same hindsight bias in judgments for themselves and the peer. Ignoring or not ignoring the answers produced the same outcome. This sharing of perspective-taking dovetails with individuals’ believing their hindsight knowledge is commonly present among others. Although participants in hindsight believed their foreseeable predictions for the peer were more accurate or realistic, it was more challenging to predict for the peer than themselves. Implications for individuals’ judgments about Donald Trump ‘s decision-making for COVID-19 are discussed. Researchers should examine perspective-taking in hindsight bias as everyday social interaction involves reasoning about others.

Hindsight bias and COVID-19: Hindsight was not 20/20 in 2020.

“…Though others have discussed how hindsight bias affects beliefs and judgments about the COVID-19 pandemic (see e.g., Hom, 2022; Lechanoine & Gangi, 2020; Redelmeier & Shafir, 2020), this is the first study to empirically investigate hindsight bias for COVID-19. Our study has theoretical, methodological, and applied implications.…”

“…This may stem from differences in the government response within these two countries. Indeed, approximately 50% of U.S. participants who responded to an open-ended question about whether the government was doing enough to mitigate COVID-19’s spread explicitly stated or alluded to the Trump administration’s failed response and tendency to undermine scientists (see Hom, 2022).…”