reasoning about childbirth

Question 1

counterfactual reasoning

Answer 1

reasoning about “what might have been”
- relies on counterfactuals
- the basis for assigning blame for harmful outcomes or giving credit for beneficial out comes
- could be highly problematic because of hindsight bias

Question 2

counterfactuals

Answer 2

mental representations of alternatives to the past, often activated automatically in response to negative affect
- often takes the form of if/then statements or questions

Question 3

hindsight bias

Answer 3

• the “knew-it-all-along” effect
• knowing that an event (outcome) has occurred increases its perceived predictability (or perceived likelihood)
• linked to the availability heuristic
• accompanied with over-confidence in the certainty of one’s judgements: people are unaware of the effect that outcome knowledge has on their perceptions of predictability
• situations that (after the fact) lend themselves to straightforward causal explanations evoke greater hindsight bias than situations that are more ambiguous