Outcome Bias
We judge decisions by their outcomes rather than by the quality of the decision-making process.
Outcome bias is an error made in evaluating the quality of a decision when the outcome of that decision is already known. Doctors who follow best practices but whose patients die are judged more harshly than doctors who make poor decisions but whose patients recover. The quality of a decision should be evaluated based on the information available at the time of decision, not based on what later transpired.
What it looks like in the wild.
- Everyday life Investment Hindsight An investor who sold Apple stock at $50 in 2005 is judged harshly in hindsight, even if selling was rational given information available at the time.
Recognising a definition is not the same skill as spotting it.
Two scenarios from the app, with distractors drawn from the same family of biases — which is what makes them hard.
A poker player who makes a mathematically correct fold but loses the hand to a bluff is criticized by friends who judge the decision by the result rather than the quality of reasoning that made folding the statistically optimal choice.
A parent thinks a parenting book is excellent because their child obeyed them for one day after reading it.
Biases rarely arrive alone.
Understand more. Assume less.
188 biases, 18,869 scenarios, and a record of how you actually decide.
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