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In 1949, a group of sociologists published a book called The American Soldier.
1949年，一群社会学家出版了一本名为《美国士兵》的书。
In it, they shared the results of years of research they'd done on soldiers in World War II.
他们在这本书里，分享了多年来对二战士兵的研究成果。
It was based on a bunch of surveys and questionnaires and they learned a lot about life at war.
其依据是一系列的调查和问卷，他们了解到很多关于在战争中生活的情况。
Like, one survey found that soldiers from rural areas were generally happier than soldiers from the city.
比如，一项调查发现，来自农村地区的士兵普遍比来自城市的士兵感觉更幸福。
Another found that men were more eager to go home during times of fighting than after the war.
另一项研究发现，男性在战争期间比战后更渴望回家。
But the book didn't go over so well.
但这本书的反响并不太好。
People slammed the researchers for going to so much trouble to state the obvious.
人们猛烈抨击研究人员，说他们费尽心思去阐明显而易见的事实。
And maybe you've rolled your eyes at studies like that before
也许你以前也曾对这样的研究不屑一顾，
— studies that don't seem to say anything surprising.
它们似乎并不能令人感到惊讶。
Like, why would someone pay researchers and take space in a prestigious journal just to say things that are perfectly intuitive?
比如，为什么会有人付钱给研究人员，在著名的期刊上发表文章，仅是为了说一些非常直观的事情？
The thing is, that's actually a pretty common response to psychology studies, but not because so many of them are intuitive.
问题是，这实际上是对心理学研究相当普遍的反响，但并不是因为很多研究都是直观性的。
The real reason is that we're often guilty of something called hindsight bias.
真正的原因是我们经常犯下所谓的事后偏见，
That's the tendency to think information is less surprising once you already know it.
这是一种倾向，认为一旦你了解信息后，就不那么感到吃惊了。
And it's just human nature. But the problem is, it doesn't just apply to science.
这只是人类的天性。但问题是，它不仅仅适用于科研，
It can skew how much credit or blame you give people — including yourself — for things that happen.
它可能还会扭曲你对所发生事件给予人们（包括你自己）信任或责难的程度。
The good news is, once you know about it, there are things you can do to reduce that bias.
好消息是，一旦你知道了这种情况，可以做些事情来减少这种偏见。
Scientists first identified hindsight bias in 1975, decades after the backlash against The American Soldier.
科学家们在1975年首次发现了事后诸葛亮这种偏见，那是在公众对《美国士兵》一书表达强烈反对之后的几十年。
And researchers believe it happens because, once you learn something,
研究人员认为，其原因是一旦你了解某事后，
your brain can't help but draw connections between that new information and all the other things you already know.
大脑会情不自禁地把这些新信息和已经知道的所有其他东西联系起来。
So you suddenly recognize patterns that make that new information seem unsurprising.
所以，你突然意识到了一些模式，这些模式使得新信息看起来并不奇怪。
Like, when you hear that the soldiers from rural areas tend to be in better spirits than other soldiers.
比如，当你听说来自农村的士兵比其他士兵精神状态更好时，
You might think, well, that's pretty obvious because someone who grew up in the country might be more rugged
你可能会认为，嗯，这很容易理解，因为在乡村长大的人可能更粗狂，
— they would've adjusted better to the conditions of war.
能更好地适应战争中的状况。
But what if the study had found the opposite? What if city people were the happier ones overall?
但是如果研究发现了相反的结果呢？如果来自城市的居民总体上感到更幸福呢？
In that case, you might reason that city people had been exposed to more of the world,
在这种情况下，你可能会认为城市人接触了更多的世界，
so they had an easier time overseas than a country boy who'd never left home.
所以他们在海外生活的日子要比从未离开过家的乡下男孩要容易。
Either way, that's your hindsight bias speaking. Things seem obvious… once you know them.
不管怎样，这都是你事后的偏见。一旦你了解情况，事情似乎就会变得很明显。
That's a pretty harmless example, but in other situations, hindsight bias can cause real problems.
这是一个无伤大雅的例子，但在其他情况下，事后诸葛亮的偏见可能会引发真正的问题。
Imagine you're a stock broker, for instance. Every day, you have to make decisions about the best places to invest money
例如，假设你是一名股票经纪人。你每天都要做出最佳的投资决策，
— and that can be hard to predict, no matter how good you are at your job.
不管你在工作上有多出色，这都很难预测。
But if you happen to make a bunch of investments that turn a large profit,
但是，如果你碰巧做了一系列投资，并获得了巨大的利润，
you might think you earned that success — because you're just that good!
你可能会认为这些成功是自己应得的，因为你就是这么擅长做这种事情！
And now that you're all confident, you might start making risky decisions,
既然你很自信，就可能会开始做冒险的决定，
because hindsight bias has you thinking you know more than you do.
因为事后偏见效应会让你认为自己知道的比实际更多。
But imagine if the same investments had turned out poorly.
但想象一下，如果同样的投资结果很糟糕，
Now you might be down on yourself for messing things up when, really, you couldn't have known better.
现在你可能会因为把事情搞砸而自责，你知道得再清楚不过了。
So, whether an outcome is positive or negative, hindsight bias just tends to make you think it was more obvious than it actually was.
不管结果是积极、还是消极，事后诸葛亮的偏见效应只会让你认为它比实际情况更明显。
And that often ends up with someone getting too much credit or too much blame.
结果往往是有人得到了过多的信任或指责。
That kind of thing can have really serious consequences.
这种事情可能会带来非常严重的后果。
Like, if you're a doctor and someone thinks you should have caught a tumor sooner than you did, you can be sued for malpractice.
比如，如果你是一名医生，有人认为你应该更早地发现肿瘤，你可能会遭到渎职起诉。
Or if your employee gets hurt on the job, someone could argue that you should have been able to prevent it.
或者，如果你的员工在工作中受伤，有人可能会争辩说，你应该能预防这种情况。
In both cases, a court may be responsible for deciding if you should have known better,
在这两种情况下，法庭可能要决定你是否应该更了解情况，
and since the jurors know how the story ends, they're susceptible to hindsight bias.
又由于陪审员知道故事的结局，他们很容易受到事后诸葛亮偏见的影响。
Accounting for this bias in legal situations is super complicated.
在法律情况下解释这种偏见，非常复杂。
But on an individual level, once you're aware of it, there are ways to reduce it.
但在个人层面上，一旦你意识到这一点，就有办法减少它。
One good strategy is called consider-the-opposite.
一个很好的策略叫做“反其道而行之”。
All you have to do is stop for a second before you give credit or place blame, and imagine if the exact opposite scenario had happened.
你所要做的就是在你给予赞扬或责怪之前停一下，想象一下是否发生过完全相反的情况。
Like, say you work at a company where an employee was caught stealing.
比如说，你在一家公司工作，一个员工偷东西被抓了。
And you have to decide if the employee's manager should be held responsible — after all, there were all sorts of warning signs.
你必须决定员工的经理是否应该对此负责。毕竟，存在各种各样的警示信号。
The employee was always coming in to work before or after hours,
这名员工总是在上班前或下班后来公司，
they spent an unusual amount of time visiting coworkers' offices, and they were obsessed with true crime shows.
他们花费超长的时间去同事的办公室，沉迷于真实的犯罪节目。
Surely the manager should have known something was up!
经理当然应该知道有事发生！
Except, consider the opposite situation.
除非考虑相反的情况。
If the employee had been making a lot of money — instead of stealing from people's desks
如果这名员工赚了很多钱，而不是从别人的办公桌偷东西，
— those same "warning signs" might not have seemed suspicious at all.
那些同样的“警示标志”可能根本就不值得怀疑。
In fact, you might think it was obvious that this was your star employee,
事实上，你可能会认为他显然是明星员工，
especially because of all that extra time they spent connecting with their coworkers and working after hours.
尤其是他们花了大量时间与同事沟通，还在下班后工作。
It turns out, if you just think about the fact that other outcomes were possible,
事实证明，如果你只考虑其他结果是可能的，
you're less likely to assume that any single outcome was obvious.
就不太可能假设任何一个结果是显而易见的。
Hindsight bias is the price we have to pay for the fact that we have hindsight at all, which is generally a good thing.
事后诸葛亮偏见是我们必须为拥有这种偏见付出的代价，这通常是件好事。
Being able to look back and connect the dots between things that have happened helps us make better decisions and learn from our mistakes.
能够回首过去，把发生的事情联系起来，有助于我们做出更好的决定，并从错误中吸取教训。
Basically, it's a great tool for planning for the future.
基本上，它是规划未来的好工具。
But when it comes to making sense of the past, it's worth remembering that hindsight isn't always reliable.
但是，当谈到对过去的理解时，值得记住的是事后诸葛亮的偏见并不总是可靠的。
That bias is part of us, though, so the better we can understand it, the better wecan work around it.
不过，这种偏见是我们的一部分，所以我们越能理解它，就越能克服它。
Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow Psych! And thanks especially to our patrons on Patreon for your support.
感谢收看本期《心理科学秀》节目！特别感谢我们在Patreon的赞助人对节目的支持。
If you like the show, they're the reason it exists! It takes a lot of different people to make a SciShow episode,
如果你喜欢这个节目，那就是它存在的原因！制作一集科学秀节目需要很多不同的人参与，没有你们的帮助，
and we couldn't do it without your help. If you'd like to learn more about how you can support us, head over to patreon.com/SciShow.
我们是无法做到的。如果您想了解更多如何支持我们的信息，请登陆patreon.com/SciShow网站。
