Watch for
Changing your evaluation of a decision after seeing the outcome.
Outcome & SelfBias #130
Outcome Bias
We judge decisions by their results not their quality.
The tendency to evaluate the quality of a past decision based on its final outcome rather than the information available at the time the decision was made.
Why it matters: Related to hindsight bias. A major source of flawed learning in organisations.
Try this
Evaluate decisions at the time they were made ignoring outcome knowledge.
Real-world example
Calling a risky gamble a smart decision because it paid off while calling the same gamble foolish if it failed.
Key researchers
Jonathan Baron, John Hershey
First described in 1988
Psychological mechanism
Outcome knowledge overwrites process evaluation. Knowing the outcome makes it impossible to accurately reconstruct the uncertainty present at the time. The outcome is salient and colours all retrospective assessment.
Seminal research
Jonathan Baron and John C. Hershey (1988), "Outcome bias in decision evaluation."
Related Biases
Below is a realistic scenario. Read it, then choose what you would do. The feedback will show whether a cognitive bias influenced your choice — not to judge, but to reveal the pattern in action.
Thought Experiment
This experiment places you in a realistic decision. Your instinctive choice will reveal whether bias is at work.
STEP 1 → ReadSTEP 2 → ChooseSTEP 3 → Reveal
Debrief
Outcome bias is the most common error in learning from experience. A bad outcome makes a good decision look bad and vice versa. But outcomes are influenced by luck. The only way to improve decision-making is to evaluate decisions by the quality of the process not the result.
Sources
Original ResearchBaron and Hershey (1988) — Outcome bias
EducationalAPA Dictionary entry