Scientific Definition
Believing past events were obviously predictable once we know how they ended.
Plain-English Definition
Believing past events were obviously predictable once we know how they ended.
Feynman Explanation
We always knew it would fail — narrated entirely in past tense.
Core Principle
Believing past events were obviously predictable once we know how they ended.
Mechanisms
Believing past events were obviously predictable once we know how they ended.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
We always knew it would fail — narrated entirely in past tense.
Examples
- Post-mortems that distort accountability into folklore.
- Learning gets replaced by a clean story everyone now believes they predicted.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Time-stamp predictions in writing before outcomes are known.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Time-stamp predictions in writing before outcomes are known.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
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Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
We judge frequency by how easily examples come to mind.
We remember our past choices as better than they were.
We judge experiences by their peak moment and how they ended.
Overweighting whatever just happened.
We remember the past as better than it was.
Doing something feels safer than doing nothing — even when nothing wins.
Feelings act as shortcuts for facts.
We prefer known risks to unknown ones, even when the unknown is better.
Over-reliance on the first number that hits the table.
Perceiving meaningful connections in unrelated things.
We ignore underlying probabilities in favor of vivid specifics.
People look better in groups than as individuals.