Abstract

Jurors in the U.S. legal system face a difficult challenge; they must ignore negative outcomes, and judge the defendant's pre–outcome actions in a fair way. This method of rejudging the past while trying to ignore certain information, makes jurors vulnerable to hindsight bias. In this article I review a growing body of research that demonstrates the detrimental effects of hindsight bias on legal decision making. Topics examined include: effects of hindsight bias on judgments of legal liability and medical malpractice litigation, the relationship between the severity of the outcome and the size of the hindsight bias effect, the role of visual hindsight bias in the courtroom, and hindsight bias in experts. I end with a review of studies that have attempted to reduce or eliminate hindsight bias in the courtroom.

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