Why the past can look more predictable than it was

After an event occurs, its causes can seem to form an obvious sequence. Details that fit the outcome become easy to notice, while the uncertainty that existed beforehand can become harder to reconstruct.

Hindsight bias is a tendency to see an outcome as more foreseeable after it is known than it appeared before. A related error, outcome bias, judges the quality of a decision too heavily through its result instead of the information and options available at the time.

The distinction matters whenever you review a success or failure. Results provide evidence, but they should help you learn rather than rewrite what could reasonably have been known.