I Just Should Have Known: Austin Trauma Therapist Discusses Hindsight Bias in PTSD

After a traumatic event, people star looking backward for signs or clues then blame themselves for missing those signs or clues. An Austin trauma therapist can help you sort through the shame, guilt, and self-blame and let go of what isn’t yours to hold.

The phenomenon of hindsight bias was first identified in the 1970s by psychologists studying decision-making. An early study asked participants to predict outcomes of President Richard Nixon's 1972 trip to China. After Nixon's return, participants were asked to recall the likelihood they had assigned to their respective predictions. For those whose predictions had come true, they recalled a higher likelihood of their expectation coming to pass than those whose prediction had not come true. In other words, people whose answers prior to the China trip were consistent with what actually happened, said they had known the outcome all along.

Colloquially, this is often referred to as "Monday morning quarterback." A person, who watched the football game over the weekend, goes in to work Monday morning and blames the quarterback (or coach or other players) for not doing what they "should" have done. However, this person knows the outcome. Just like the team, he/she did not know the outcome when the game was in progress.

The NPR podcast Hidden Brain did an excellent episode, titled The Halo Effect, on this topic recently. Most of the podcast focuses on the recall coordinator who was at Ford during the time of the Pinto. His job was to make a recommendation about whether to recall the Pinto and, in two instances, he elected not to. Most are quick to say they he screwed up and is responsible for the deaths caused by exploding Pintos. A more in-depth investigation, however, reveals what was actually known and not known at each stage and suggests a more complex reality.

When remembering a traumatic event, our brains like to oversimplify and important pieces of context get left out. An Austin trauma therapist can help you pan back and see the whole picture.

Hindsight bias also plays a role in how people make sense of experiencing trauma. Someone looks back at what happened then judges him or herself for failing to prevent the event. "I just should have known." "I ignored all the signs." "If I had just done [x] differently, it wouldn't have happened." But, just as in the case of the "Monday morning quarterback" or the Ford Pinto, it helps to keep in mind that no one really knows the outcome of an event until it is finished. Hindsight bias is a way to try to make sense of an unpredictable world, and it can give the impression that bad outcomes are always preventable. However, it also keeps a person mired in the shame, guilt, and self-blame that keep PTSD symptoms in place.

Austin Trauma Therapist

If this speaks to you, you might be a good candidate for Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), an evidence-based treatment for PTSD. Go here to learn more about working with an Austin trauma therapist.