Outcome bias

What it is

Judging a decision by how it turned out rather than by the quality of the reasoning at the time it was made.

Related

• Fundamental attribution error bias
  Judging people by how things turned out, rather than by their circumstances, overrates character.
• Hindsight bias bias
  Once we know the outcome we judge the decision by it and believe it should have been foreseen.
• Just-world hypothesis bias
  Judging decisions by their outcome fits a world in which people get what they deserve.
• Regression to the mean bias
  Praising or blaming a decision for what was partly a swing of luck confuses result and quality.
• Alternative paths bias
  Judging only the outcome that occurred ignores the alternative outcomes that could have.
• Illusion of skill bias
  Judging by results credits luck as skill.

Appears in

• The 99 thinking errors in Rolf Dobelli's The Art of Thinking Clearly#20: Outcome bias

References

• Wikipedia: Outcome bias en.wikipedia.org
• The 99 thinking errors in Rolf Dobelli's The Art of Thinking Clearly en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia: List of cognitive biases en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia: Cognitive bias codex en.wikipedia.org

More in “Deciding and acting: incentives, loss and commitment”