Hindsight bias is a psychological phenomenon that causes people to perceive past events as more predictable than they actually were. It is also known as the "knew-it-all-along" phenomenon or creeping determinism. Hindsight bias can lead people to overestimate their ability to have foreseen the outcome of an event. It is a type of cognitive bias that can cause people to think that their judgment is better than it actually is.

Factors that contribute to hindsight bias include memory distortion, foreseeability, and outcome valence and intensity. Hindsight bias is more likely to occur when the outcome of an event is negative rather than positive.

Hindsight bias can have negative consequences, such as causing overconfidence in ones performance relative to others, decreasing rational thinking, and interfering with ones ability to learn from experience.

To avoid the negative effects of hindsight bias, it is important to be aware of its existence and to recognize when it is happening. It is also important to remember that automatic thoughts are not always accurate and that hindsight bias can happen for different reasons.