Did You Know It All Along?: The Psychology of Hindsight Bias

The Huffington Post:

Who will win the presidency in 2012? Will it be Obama or Romney? It’s mid October 2012, and no one can say. Sure, there are pundits aplenty with precise predictions, who speak as though they know exactly what the future portends but in reality are simply parroting a party line. For the rest, of course, it is all too clear that we just don’t know. There are no crystal balls, and no one can foresee the future. In fact, there has probably not been such a moment of such perfect uncertainty since the start of the election season. Back in September Obama had an edge, but in recent weeks Romney appears to have closed the gap.

This uncertainty opens the doors of our imagination: we can visualize what another Obama or a new Romney presidency might be like, we can speculate this way and that, we can let our imaginations run wild. But in the end we just don’t know. We are uncertain. On November 6, 2012, that uncertainty will vanish and we will all finally know for sure.

Read the whole story: The Huffington Post