Comparison
Outcome Bias vs Narrative Fallacy
Main difference in one sentence
Outcome Bias judges the quality of the decision by how things ended, while Narrative Fallacy builds a tidy story that explains the ending too neatly.
Story Traps
Narrative & Meaning Errors
Outcome Bias asks, often unfairly, whether the choice was good or bad by looking at the result alone. It confuses luck with judgment.
Story Traps
Narrative & Meaning Errors
Narrative Fallacy turns a messy chain of causes into a clean, memorable explanation. It confuses a satisfying story with an accurate one.
Example where people confuse them
After a risky product launch succeeds, a team calls the original decision brilliant because the ending was good. That is Outcome Bias because the reasoning is being graded by the result. If the same team then tells a neat story that one heroic choice caused the whole success while ignoring luck, timing, and market conditions, that is Narrative Fallacy because the messy reality has been compressed into a clean arc.
Quick memory trick
Outcome Bias says, "The ending proves the decision." Narrative Fallacy says, "The tidy story explains the ending."