After the financial crisis of 2007-08, many self-professed experts claimed the crash was inevitable. This is an example of:

• A. Hindsight bias
• B. Confirmation bias
• C. Availability bias
• D. Anchoring bias

Answer: (A)

Seeing the crisis as inevitable after it happened is hindsight bias. It captures the tendency to judge past events as having been predictable once the outcome is known, making people feel they “knew it all along.” In the moment of the crisis, predictions were uncertain and contested, but after the fact the outcome is used to craft a narrative of inevitability, which reinforces overconfidence about similar events in the future. The other biases don’t fit this scenario as directly: confirmation bias would involve seeking or interpreting evidence to support a preexisting belief, available bias centers on what jumps to mind during judgment, and anchoring bias involves clinging to an initial piece of information despite new data.