Monday, March 16, 2009
Hindsight Bias Behind Time Travel Plots
When we discussed the message behind plots where people travel back in time to fix the present but don’t succeed, I got the impression that we settled on an attitude of pessimism as the message. As a class, we seemed to agree that this pessimism stemmed from our recognition that our human race is able to commit extreme atrocities, such as those committed in wars, and hence hope for the future seems bleak. On further thought, I came to an alternate explanation for the message behind such seemingly pessimistic time travel plots. I’m not sure if this is a very psychological take on the issue, but I believe that the notion of “hindsight bias” is responsible for such plots.
Hindsight bias as was defined by Baruch Fischhoff is “an unjustified increase in the perceived probability of an event due to outcome knowledge”. The rationale behind the occurrence of this bias is that once we are aware of an outcome, we settle on causal routes that led to that outcome rather than actively explore alternate routes. In the case of atrocities committed during wars, it is advantageous to our psychological well-being to endorse this bias because it is easier to look back on an unpleasant past thinking it was inevitable rather than thinking we could have done something to prevent it. On the other hand, the creeping in of the hindsight bias may prevent us from recognizing our mistakes (since we perceive the outcome as having been inevitable) and thus lead to the repetition of such mistakes in the future. Therefore, it is wise to be aware of our susceptibility to the hindsight bias to be able to prevent it. The plot lines of many time travel movies seemed to have endorsed this bias. It makes sense given that this line of thinking is appealing to the masses.
Hindsight bias as was defined by Baruch Fischhoff is “an unjustified increase in the perceived probability of an event due to outcome knowledge”. The rationale behind the occurrence of this bias is that once we are aware of an outcome, we settle on causal routes that led to that outcome rather than actively explore alternate routes. In the case of atrocities committed during wars, it is advantageous to our psychological well-being to endorse this bias because it is easier to look back on an unpleasant past thinking it was inevitable rather than thinking we could have done something to prevent it. On the other hand, the creeping in of the hindsight bias may prevent us from recognizing our mistakes (since we perceive the outcome as having been inevitable) and thus lead to the repetition of such mistakes in the future. Therefore, it is wise to be aware of our susceptibility to the hindsight bias to be able to prevent it. The plot lines of many time travel movies seemed to have endorsed this bias. It makes sense given that this line of thinking is appealing to the masses.
# posted by Denise Chan @ 12:16 AM 
