Hindsight Bias

By Dave Smith
Lead Street Survival Seminar Instructor

Did you ever notice that watching a movie for the second or third or tenth time never brings the same rush as watching it for the first time did? Sure you did, and yet we often don't think about the how's and why's of our human brain and its oddities.

This particular phenomenon wouldn't matter if the same effect we have when watching a movie numerous times also occurs when we write, read or evaluate a use of force report. Too often we trainers try to define the perfect response to a crisis when reviewing the footage of an officer in a critical incident.

Administrators often do the same thing when deciding if an officer should be exonerated, trained or punished in the review of a use of force action...they seek the perfect option and fall prey to "hindsight bias."

First, perfection is rarer than diamonds and when it comes to human decision making, perfection is about as difficult as a task can be. The way our brain works is, it finds an option it recognizes from training, experience, metaphor, stories, or whatever...it just sees the critical incident building and recognizes it is time to do this or that action.

In Sources of Power, Gary Klein states that the brain usually takes action that satisfies and suffices to fulfill the threat. This is called "Satisficing" and to expect perfection from our men and women even under non-stressful situations would be insanity. We should instead evaluate the decisions as whether they "satisfice" a given situation.

Secondly, as we evaluate a given crisis and an officer's actions, remember the difference between your brain as the evaluator after the fact not at threat and that of the officer's going into the crisis in the moment.

You see, even the officer involved in the critical incident will probably not remember it after its conclusion as he or she perceived it going into it initially, as an ambiguous novel event. Going into a crisis we don't know what the ending will be, what the real threat is, what will happen! Once we know the ending of the story even the participating officers will forget much of the ambiguity, the fear, the doubt they felt just seconds before.

This is what hindsight bias does, it erases ambiguity and creates a sense of certainty that shouldn't exist.

"Monday morning quarterbacking" is the same phenomena; we all know what the Bears, Broncos, or Browns should have done last Sunday. We know the ending of the game and can actually go back in our memories and seemingly remember the exact play, or decision that cost the game.

Officers Monday-morning themselves, very often immediately after a critical incident, and it often hurts them in preparing an honest report of what happened; they forget they were totally naïve as to what the real threats might or might not be and write their reports without recreating the ambiguity, fear, and doubt they felt. After all, no one ever is going to get a call such as, "respond to 110 West Elm and shoot the occupant!"

Yet, for most officers they feel as if that was the call they were sent on when remembering the domestic violence call at 110 West Elm where they shot Joe Dirtbag.

Trainers, administrators and especially the media would do well to try to remember to review all police actions with a sense of ignorance, just like when we all watched our favorite movie for the first time. Would Luke Skywalker survive, was Hans Solo a mercenary jerk who would take the money and run or return and save Luke? If I tell you the ending now and you haven't seen it there is no thrill, no rush, no anxiety, no great movie.

A lot of research is going on today to try to get officers to give accurate and clear reports about use of force, especially deadly force, and I look forward to the various points that are constantly coming out. Unfortunately, we don't spend much time thinking about the frames of reference of those who will be evaluating that use of force. We need to truly understand that "Hindsight Bias" is an essential step in making sure we learn the real lessons and judge the decisions made correctly.

All this came to me as I read the headlines of the shooting in New York of a fellow whom officers shot at "approximately fifty times." The entire story was written backwards, from the ending to the beginning, trying to make it seem incredible that the officers could have done such a thing. Read that story in the correct timeline and give some of the officer's frame of reference and suddenly it isn't so spectacular. But, then, the media isn't trying to make a good movie, and cops are just trying to stay safe.

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An opportunity to support U.S. troops with body armor

Dear Street Survival Newsline,

The Police Officers Safety Association recently received a request from Sgt. Bill Kamataris (Clinton, MA PD), forwarded from Maj. Eric Ogborn, U.S. Army, an officer we used to train with at Bill's martial arts school.

Maj. Ogborn and his MP unit are leaving for Iraq soon. They were requesting any used police ballistic vests that we could provide. They want them for wear inside their Iraq base, where they offer some level of protection against threats. Their normal battle armor is too heavy and cumbersome to be worn all the time there.

We put the word out through the firearms instructors association in Massachusetts, and soon we had several hundred vests for the Major. A local company even volunteered to ship them to the Major's APO address.

Major Ogborn indicated that he could find a willing taker for any number of vests we could provide, so we are asking for donations of any other used or otherwise un-used vests that fellow officers can provide.

Since the appropriate POC and the appropriate APO shipping address will shift around over the next several months, the best thing for anyone wanting to donate vests to do is to contact Sgt. Kamataris by email at kamataris@comcast.net to get the current POC and address. Perhaps your association, your agency, or a local company can pick up the shipping costs!

Thanks so much!

Ralph Mroz, Training Director
Police Officers Safety Association
"Free force video training programs for law enforcement"
www.posai.org

II. Upcoming Street Survival Seminars

Seminar Sponsors:

Seminar Location	Dates	Details
Street Survival Seminar Tacoma,WA	November 30-Dec 1, 2006	Detail
Street Survival Seminar Myrtle Beach,SC	December 5-6, 2006	Detail
Street Survival Seminar Austin,Texas	December 14-15, 2006	Detail
Street Survival Seminar Raleigh-Durham,NC	January 16-17, 2007	Detail
Street Survival Seminar Atlantic City,NJ	January 23-24, 2007	Detail
Street Survival Seminar Atlanta (Duluth),GA	January 30-31, 2007	Detail
Street Survival Seminar Kansas City,KS	February 6-7, 2007	Detail
Street Survival Seminar Houston,TX	February 12-13, 2007	Detail
Street Survival Seminar Spokane ,WA	February 21-22, 2007	Detail
Street Survival Seminar Arlington,VA	March 5-6, 2007	Detail
Street Survival Seminar Cincinnati (Hamilton),OH	March 12-13, 2007	Detail
Street Survival Seminar Boston,MA	March 20-21, 2007	Detail
Street Survival Seminar Minneapolis,MN	April 11-12, 2007	Detail
Street Survival Seminar Denver,CO	April 17-18, 2007	Detail
Street Survival Seminar for WOMEN Las Vegas,NV	April 25-26, 2007	Detail
Street Survival Seminar Cleveland,OH	May 16-17, 2007	Detail
Street Survival Seminar Lake Tahoe,NV	May 22-23, 2007	Detail
Not coming to your area? Please contact Slavka Younger at Slavka.younger@trinitylearning.com to find out how you can bring Street Survival seminar to your department.

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