Social Psych Situation: My male roommate was late to work and in a hurry. When he went to start his car he realized the battery was dead. He said, "I knew this would happen! Why do the car gods always do this to me? I'm supposed to know about these car things, all the other guys do!"

This situation clearly illustrates three principles of social psychology: hindsight bias, external locus of control, and social comparison. If I knew the reasons why my roommate was running late, there would be even more principles of social psychology to discuss. As it was, my roommate claimed to "know" that his car would not start. He assumed that he knew such a thing would happen. If he had really known it would happen, however, he might not have left on his lights or done whatever he could to prevent the battery from dying. This would have demonstrated foresight instead of hindsight. If my roommate had a car prone to dead batteries, his reaction would have been more one of quiet resignation and immediate action rather than having the bias of false hindsight. His hindsight bias was a type of cognitive coping mechanism that my roommate used to deny the reality that he did not and could not have known that his battery was already dead when he woke up.

Hindsight bias is actually a type of overconfidence in our own cognitive powers. It is the tendency to believe that we are all-knowing and all-powerful, which is more comfortable than the reality that life has a lot of chance elements that we cannot control. Hindsight bias is understandable, given what we know about human nature. Human beings want to be in control of situations; even if human beings have an equal tendency to attribute situations to "God" or "the gods," as we shall see later. From a social psychology perspective, however, hindsight bias is one of the irrational ways people structure their universe....

Hindsight bias does not seem like a constructive use of human cognitive powers. Understanding the phenomenon, and recognizing when it happens, can help people prevent hindsight bias. Historians often refer to a type of hindsight bias when they state, "Hindsight is 20/20." Referring to perfect vision, 20/20 represents the presumed clarity with which we can view the past. While an event is happening, we do not have that type of clarity because we truly do not know the future. The future is determined by what we think, do, and say now.
When my roommate bemoaned his situation, he cried, "Why do the car gods always do this to me?" A common reaction, attributing an event to external powers is a social psychological phenomenon called external locus of control. Just as my roommate falsely claimed to have predicted the dead battery, he also falsely attributes the dead battery to the "car gods." Even if car gods did exist, their culpability in my roommate's situation cannot be proven. The car gods are most likely not to blame for the dead battery. Instead, locus of control in this situation is complex. My roommate may need to assume some of the responsibility for what happened. He certainly needs to take responsibility for running late. If he were not late, he might not blame the car gods. As it is, he is avoiding the responsibility for being late by blaming his actions on the car gods. Similarly, if the battery died because he left on the lights, then my roommate needs to take full responsibility for that lapse in attention rather than to blame the car gods. He needs to switch his locus of control from a false external locus of control to a genuine internal locus of control. Granted, there may be some external locus of control because the car itself could have faulty wiring. Even so, my roommate might still cultivate an internal locus of control by (a)…