Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Reading about explanations enhances perceptions of inevitability and foreseeability: a cross-cultural study with Wikipedia articles

  • Research Report
  • Published:
Cognitive Processing Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In hindsight, people often perceive events to be more inevitable and foreseeable than in foresight. According to Causal Model Theory (Nestler et al. in J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 34: 1043–1054, 2008), causal explanations are crucial for such hindsight distortions to occur. The present study provides further empirical support for this notion but extends previous findings in several ways. First, ecologically valid materials were used. Second, the effect of causal information on hindsight distortions was investigated in the realm of previously known events. Third, cross-cultural differences in reasoning (analytic vs. holistic) were taken into account. Specifically, German and Vietnamese participants in our study were presented with Wikipedia articles about the nuclear power plant in Fukushima Daiichi, Japan. They read either the version that existed before the nuclear disaster unfolded (Version 1) or the article that existed 8 weeks after the catastrophe commenced (Version 2). Only the latter contained elaborations on causal antecedents and therefore provided an explanation for the disaster. Reading that version led participants to perceive the nuclear disaster to be more likely inevitable and foreseeable when compared to reading Version 1. Cultural background did not exert a significant effect on these perceptions. Hence, hindsight distortions were obtained for ecologically valid materials even if the event was already known. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view and http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutraler_Standpunkt.

  2. Version 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Power_Plant&oldid=396253422; Version 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Power_Plant&oldid=427595027. Note that from version 2 only technical information about the power plant provided in a table was cut.

  3. Note, however, that the pattern of results was identical when including item 3 or when analyzing it separately. Also, it seems noteworthy that internal consistency varied between both samples (Vietnamese α = .31, German α = .60). This may be due to a differential understanding of inevitability between German and Vietnamese participants.

References

  • Anderson JC, Jennings MM, Lowe DJ, Reckers PMJ (1997) The mitigation of hindsight bias in judges’ evaluation of auditor decisions. Audit J Pract Theory 16:20–39

    Google Scholar 

  • Arkes HR, Faust D, Guilmette TJ, Hart K (1988) Eliminating the hindsight bias. J Appl Psychol 73:305–307

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ash IK (2009) Surprise, memory, and retrospective judgment making: testing cognitive reconstruction theories of the hindsight bias effect. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 35:916–933

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Blank H, Nestler S (2007) Cognitive process models of hindsight bias. Soc Cognit 25:132–146

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blank H, Nestler S, von Collani G, Fischer V (2008) How many hindsight biases are there? Cognition 106:1408–1440

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Boroditsky L, Fuhrman O, McCormick K (2011) Do English and mandarin speakers think about time differently? Cognition 118:123–129

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Calvillo DP, Gomes DM (2011) Surprise influences hindsight–foresight differences in temporal judgments of animated automobile accidents. Psychon Bull Rev 18:385–391

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Carli LL (1999) Cognitive reconstruction, hindsight, and reactions to victims and perpetrators. Pers Soc Psychol Bull 25:966–979

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Choi I, Nisbett RE (2000) Cultural psychology of surprise: holistic theories and recognition of contradiction. J Pers Soc Psychol 79:890–905

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Choi I, Dalal R, Kim-Prieto C, Park H (2003) Culture and judgment of causal relevance. J Pers Soc Psychol 84:46–59

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Choi I, Koo M, Choi JA (2007) Individual differences in analytic versus holistic thinking. Pers Soc Psychol Bull 33:691–705

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Dawes RM (1993) Prediction of the future versus an understanding of the past: a basic asymmetry. Am J Psychol 106:1–24

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fischhoff B (1977) Perceived informativeness of facts. J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 3:349–358

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Forte A, Bruckman A (2008). Scaling consensus: increasing decentralization in Wikipedia governance. Proceedings of the international conference of the learning sciences, Bloomington, USA

  • Giles J (2005) Internet encyclopaedias go head to head. Nature 438:900–901

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Guilbault RL, Bryant FB, Brockway JH, Posavac EJ (2004) A meta-analysis of research on hindsight bias. Basic Appl Soc Psychol 26:103–117

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hastie R, Schkade DA, Payne JW (1999) Juror judgments in civil cases: hindsight effects on judgments of liability for punitive damages. Law Hum Behav 23:597–614

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heine SJ, Lehman DR (1996) Hindsight bias: a cross-cultural analysis. Jpn J Exp Soc Psychol 35:317–323

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Keegan B, Gergle D, Contractor N (2011) Hot off the Wiki: dynamics, practices, and structures in Wikipedia’s coverage of the Tōhoku catastrophes. Proceedings of the 7th international symposium on wikis and open collaboration, ACM Press, New York

  • Kittur A, Kraut R (2008) Harnessing the wisdom of crowds in Wikipedia: quality through coordination. Proceedings of the ACM 2008 conference on computer supported cooperative work, ACM Press, New York

  • Louie TA (2005) Hindsight bias and outcome-consistent thoughts when observing and making service provider decisions. Organ Behav Hum Decis Process 98:88–95

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Merz M, Döring N (2010) Aktive beteiligung an Wikipedia aus sozial-kognitiver perspektive. http://purl.org/merz/20100926 on 27 Nov 2012

  • Miller JG (1984) Culture and the development of everyday social explanation. J Pers Soc Psychol 46:961–978

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Nario MR, Branscombe NR (1995) Comparison processes in hindsight and causal attributions. Pers Soc Psychol Bull 21:1244–1255

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nestler S, Egloff B (2009) Increased or reversed? The effect of surprise on hindsight bias depends on the hindsight component. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 35:1539–1544

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Nestler S, von Collani G (2008) Hindsight bias and the activation of counterfactual mind-sets. Exp Psychol 55:342–349

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nestler S, Blank H, von Collani G (2008) Hindsight bias doesn’t always come easy: causal models, cognitive effort and creeping determinism. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 34:1043–1054

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Nestler S, Blank H, Egloff B (2010) Hindsight ≠ Hindsight: experimentally induced dissociations between hindsight components. J Exp Psychol Lern Mem Cogn 36:1399–1413

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nisbett RE (2003) The geography of thought. Free Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Nisbett RE, Peng K, Choi I, Norenzayan A (2001) Culture and systems of thought: holistic versus analytic cognition. Psychol Rev 108:291–310

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Norenzayan A, Smith EE, Kim BJ, Nisbett RE (2002) Cultural preferences for formal versus intuitive reasoning. Cogn Sci 26:653–684

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Norenzayan A, Choi I, Peng K (2007) Perception and cognition. In: Kitayama S, Cohen D (eds) Handbook of cultural psychology. Guilford Press, New York, pp 569–594

    Google Scholar 

  • Peng K, Nisbett RE (1999) Culture, dialectics, and reasoning about contradiction. Am Psychol 54:741–754

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pezzo MV (2003) Surprise, defense, or making sense: what removes the hindsight bias? Memory 11:421–441

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Pezzo MV (2011) Hindsight bias: a primer for motivational researchers. Soc Pers Psychol Compass 5:665–678

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pohl RF, Bender M, Lachmann G (2002) Hindsight bias around the world. Exp Psychol 49:270–282

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Roese NJ, Olson JM (1996) Counterfactuals, causal attributions, and the hindsight bias: a conceptual integration. J Exp Soc Psychol 32:197–227

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roese NJ, Vohs KD (2012) Hindsight bias. Perspect Psychol Sci 7:411–426

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ross M, Xun WQ, Wilson AE (2002) Language and the bicultural self. Pers Soc Psychol Bull 28:1040–1050

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schkade DA, Kilbourne LM (1991) Expectation-outcome consistency and hindsight bias. Organ Behav Hum Decis Process 49:105–123

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oeberst A, Halatchliyski I, Kimmerle J, Cress U (2014) Knowledge construction in Wikipedia: a systemic-constructivist analysis. J Learn Sci (in press). http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10508406.2014.888352

  • Yama H, Manktelow KI, Mercier H, van der Henst JB, Soo Do K, Kawasaki Y, Adachi K (2010) A cross-cultural study of hindsight bias and conditional probabilistic reasoning. Think Reason 16:346–371

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yopchick JE, Kim NS (2012) Hindsight bias and causal reasoning: a minimalist approach. Cogn Process 13:63–72

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

Preparation of the manuscript was supported by grants from the DFG to Aileen Oeberst and Ulrike Cress (OE 604/1-1) and Steffen Nestler and Mitja D. Back (NE 1485/5-1). We are grateful to Nguyen Thi Hoai Nga who helped us with collecting data from Vietnamese students.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Knowledge Media Research Center, Schleichstr. 6, 72076, Tübingen, Germany

    Aileen Oeberst & Ina von der Beck

  2. University of Münster, Münster, Germany

    Steffen Nestler

Authors
  1. Aileen Oeberst
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Ina von der Beck
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Steffen Nestler
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Aileen Oeberst.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Oeberst, A., von der Beck, I. & Nestler, S. Reading about explanations enhances perceptions of inevitability and foreseeability: a cross-cultural study with Wikipedia articles. Cogn Process 15, 343–349 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-014-0603-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-014-0603-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation