Which term describes the phenomenon of believing one would have predicted an outcome after knowing it?

The phenomenon where individuals believe they would have predicted an outcome after learning the result is known as hindsight bias. This bias leads people to see events as having been more predictable than they actually were. Once an outcome is known, individuals often feel a sense of certainty about it and may claim that they "knew it all along," even if they did not. This cognitive bias illustrates how our memory and perception of events can be influenced by our knowledge of the outcome, leading to a distorted understanding of how things unfolded.

In contrast, confirmation bias refers to the tendency to search for, interpret, and remember information in a way that confirms one’s preexisting beliefs or hypotheses. Self-serving bias involves attributing positive events to one’s own actions while blaming negative events on external factors. The availability heuristic is a mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to mind when evaluating a specific topic, concept, method, or decision. Understanding these distinctions helps clarify why hindsight bias specifically captures the inclination to overestimate one's ability to foresee events after they have occurred.