How to treat wisdom after the event?

The so-called hindsight bias means that people tend to use the results after the incident to understand the cause and process of the incident. "Being wise after the event" refers to this phenomenon. People tend to ignore the natural advantages of ex post facto understanding and further belittle the complexity and difficulty of ex post facto decision-making. The prejudice of hindsight is universal and part of human nature. This illusion makes it easy to overestimate one's own ability and underestimate the ability of others. Buffett tried his best to avoid making such mistakes in investment. In fact, his investment in Berkshire Hathaway in the 1960s (mainly in the textile industry) taught Buffett a great lesson. In the 1980s, he was forced to close down the textile business which was losing money continuously. This has formed Buffett's very important investment criteria, that is, investing in companies that maintain consistent operating principles and avoiding companies that are in trouble. Don't overestimate yourself, expect yourself to do better than the operators of the company and turn losses into profits. "Charlie and I haven't learned how to solve the company's problems," Buffett admitted. "But we have learned how to avoid these problems. Our success lies in focusing on the one-foot fence we can cross, rather than finding a way to cross the seven-foot fence. " One problem with common sense is that we don't remember the facts until we know them. It is obviously easier to be wise after the event than to be prescient. Some experiments show that when the experimental results are known, people will suddenly feel that the results are not so surprising, at least compared with those who only know the experimental procedures or expected results. Once we master new knowledge, our effective memory system will automatically update outdated assumptions. Nearly half a century ago, social psychologists found: 1. Soldiers with good education have more problems in adaptation than soldiers with low education. Compared with those graduates from "social" universities, intellectuals are even less adapted to the anxiety caused by fighting. ) 2. Southern soldiers are more adapted to the hot climate of South China Sea Islands than northern soldiers. Southerners are more adapted to the hot climate. White soldiers are more keen on promotion than black soldiers. Years of repression will reduce the motivation for achievement. Black soldiers in the south prefer officers in the south to those in the north. Because southern officials are more accustomed to dealing with blacks and have more skills. When reading lazarsfeld's research summary, you may have the same experience. But lazarsfeld went on to say, "Any of these statements is just the opposite of what was actually found." In fact, this book also reports that soldiers with low education level have poor adaptability. Southerners dislike tropical climate more than northerners. Black soldiers are more keen on promotion, and so on. "If we give real conclusions from the beginning (as Schlesinger feels), readers may mark these facts as' obvious'." Similarly, in our daily life, we often experience that kind of hindsight. In a flash, we are not surprised by the sudden insight into the forces that make things happen. After the election or the stock market show, most commentators were not surprised: "It's time to rectify the market." After the Iraq war in 2003, the result of the war-easy for the allies, but not for civilization and democracy-seems obvious. Many people think that considering that the United States has an advantage of $330 billion to $0.60 billion in Iraq, anyone would have expected such a result. However, the U.S. military should foresee in advance the necessity of protecting Baghdad's museums, libraries and schools in order to avoid attacks by robbers. Like the Danish philosopher and theologian Soren? 6? As Kierkegaard said in "1", "Life is to be alive, but it should be understood in reverse." If this "hindsight bias" (also known as "I knew it" phenomenon) is deeply rooted in people's hearts, you may feel the results you already know. Indeed, almost all credible conclusions from psychological experiments seem like common sense, of course, after you know the results. You can prove that this phenomenon exists. Divide a group of people into two groups, tell one group a psychological conclusion and give the other group the opposite conclusion. For example, tell a group that social psychologists have found that people with different personalities are most attractive to us, whether they choose friends or fall in love. As the old saying goes, "opposites attract". The other group was told that social psychologists found that people with similar personalities were the most attractive to us, whether in choosing friends or falling in love. As the old saying goes, "Birds of a feather flock together, and people are divided into groups". Let people explain this conclusion first, then ask them if they are surprised. No matter what conclusion they were told, we can find that the conclusion they got didn't surprise them. In fact, almost any conclusion will become common sense because of the explanation of proverbs and aphorisms. If a social psychologist reports that separation deepens love, A will answer, "Is that what you do for a living?"? Everyone knows that' small parting is better than new marriage'. " If the result is that separation will put out the fire of love, B will answer: "My grandmother can tell you that' people leave tea cool'." Carl, when? 6? 1 Gant must have been happy for a long time when he asked the students of Leicester University in England to evaluate the motto and its antonym. When they saw the motto "Fear is stronger than love", most people thought it was not bad, but the students also made the same comment on its opposite "Love is stronger than fear". Similarly, people attach great importance to the adage that "one fallen person can't help another fallen person" and its opposite "one fallen person can help another fallen person". However, what I appreciate most is that these two sentences are recognized by everyone: "A wise man derogates, a fool repeats." (The real motto) And the man-made phrase "Fools lie, but wise men repeat it." After-the-fact wisdom prejudice has troubled many psychology students. Sometimes, the results are really unexpected (for example, Olympic bronze medalists are more satisfied with their achievements than silver medalists). But more often, the experimental conclusions you learn in textbooks seem easy or even obvious. Later, when doing multiple-choice questions, facing multiple seemingly credible answers, the task will be much more difficult. The abused students can't help complaining: "I really don't know what's going on. I thought I understood everything. " The phenomenon of "facts I knew for a long time" not only makes the discovery of social science look like common sense, but also may bring fatal consequences. It may make us conceited, that is, overestimate our intelligence. Moreover, because the results seem to be predictable, we are more inclined to blame the decision makers for the wrong decisions that seem "obvious" afterwards, rather than praise the correct decisions that are equally "obvious" by the decision makers. Looking back on the morning of 9 1 1, it seems that the signal pointing to disaster is very obvious. A survey report of the US Senate listed these neglected or misunderstood clues. The CIA knows that Al Qaeda's minions have infiltrated the country. A memo sent by an FBI agent to the headquarters begins with this warning: "Ben, the FBI and new york City? 6? 1 bin laden may send students to the United States to participate in joint operations of private aviation colleges. " The FBI ignored this accurate warning and did not link it with other reports that predicted that terrorists might use planes as weapons. "These fucking idiots!" This seems to be an ex post facto prejudice. "Why don't they connect all the clues?" But as far as what seems clear afterwards is concerned, it is not so clear beforehand. Intelligence agencies are full of "noise"-there are mountains of useless information around a little useful information. Because of this, analysts have to decide what kind of problems to continue investigating. In the six years before 9 1 1, the anti-terrorism agency of the FBI had 68,000 things without a clue. In hindsight, this little useful information now seems so obvious. Similarly, we sometimes blame ourselves for making "stupid mistakes"-failing to get along better with others or handling things better. When we look back, we know how to act. "I should have thought about how busy I would be at the end of the term and started writing my thesis." But sometimes we are too hard on ourselves. We forget that what seems obvious in hindsight was not so obvious at that time. When doctors know the patient's symptoms and the cause of death (the conclusion of autopsy), they sometimes think: How can such an incorrect diagnosis be made? Other doctors who only know the symptoms will not find the wrong diagnosis so obvious. If the jury is forced to look at it from the perspective of foresight rather than hindsight, will they hesitate to judge the negligence? ) So, what conclusion should we draw: Is common sense usually wrong? Sometimes it is. Common sense and medical experience convince doctors that bloodletting is very effective in treating typhoid fever. Until the middle of19th century, someone took pains to do an experiment-divide the patients into two groups, one is bleeding and the other is just resting in bed, which proves that there is no connection between them. At other times, common sense is correct, or both sides are reasonable: is happiness knowing the truth or indulging in fantasy? Get along with others or live alone? There are so many opinions as the sea, no matter what we find, someone always foresees it. (mark? 6? 1 Twain once joked that Adam was the only one who could be sure that he was "the best person in the world" after throwing up the lotus flower. ) But of all the arguments, which one is the most realistic? The problem is that common sense is not always wrong. More precisely, common sense is always proved to be correct afterwards. In this way, we must think that we know more now and in the past than we can do now and in the past. And this is precisely why we need science: to help us distinguish between reality and illusion, and to distinguish between real prediction and simple hindsight.