Comparison
Outcome Bias vs Hindsight Bias
Main difference in one sentence
Outcome Bias judges whether the decision was good by looking at the ending, while Hindsight Bias makes the ending feel obvious after it has already happened.
Story Traps
Narrative & Meaning Errors
Outcome Bias grades the choice by the result. A lucky win can make weak reasoning look smart, and a bad outcome can make careful reasoning look foolish.
Story Traps
Narrative & Meaning Errors
Hindsight Bias rewrites memory after the ending is known. It makes past uncertainty look smaller than it really was.
Example where people confuse them
After a product launch fails, a team says the decision was bad because it ended badly. That is Outcome Bias because the reasoning is being graded by the result. If the same team then says the failure was obvious from the beginning, that is Hindsight Bias because the known ending is rewriting how predictable the launch felt at the time.
Quick memory trick
Outcome Bias says, "Bad ending, bad decision." Hindsight Bias says, "We should have seen it coming."