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<\/p>\nAs a child, I dreamed of having a superpower. Invisibility, flying, incredible strength, teleporting \u2013 any would have been just fine, I wasn\u2019t choosy! Unfortunately it didn\u2019t take too long for me to realise I was not \u2018on the list\u2019 so I went to work for BT instead and started on the road to a career in Fraud Management!<\/p>\n
Over 25 years later it suddenly became clear to me, as I watched events unfold in Brazil over the last two weeks, that I may have been wrong all along.\u00a0 In fact I DID have a superpower. I was, in fact, \u201cHindsight Man\u201d! Unfortunately my hindsight powers did seem to have limitations in that they only worked in connection with the performance of the England Football (Soccer) team \u2013 but you have to start somewhere! However, once I realised I may possess this power I quickly noticed that nearly everyone else I came into contact with also seemed to be blessed with this ability – and it is always completely accurate (20:20), right? A pretty useful Superpower for a fraud professional then!<\/p>\n
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Before investing in the cape and mask, I decided to do some further research on the subject of Hindsight.\u00a0 So, what is hindsight?\u00a0 It is defined as \u2018the ability to understand, after something has happened, what should have been done or what caused the event\u2019. As I delved deeper, I realised that I, as with many others, am most likely suffering from something psychologists call Hindsight Bias\u2026. also known as the \u2018Knew-it-all-along effect\u2019.<\/p>\n
It appears we humans have a tendency to suggest predictability even in events where there is little or no evidence to support the prediction prior to the event. Unfortunately, it gets worse\u2026.even where some evidence may be present in order to validate our \u2018Hindsight\u2019 we may change our recollections to support newly provided information. The level of memory distortion this involves is not just affected by whether there is a positive or negative outcome, but also the severity of the negative outcome. Dangerous Stuff!<\/p>\n
So it looks like I may not possess the power of hindsight after all and looking at it from a Fraud Management perspective that may be a good thing. Hindsight, as we have seen, can be based on no factual evidence and, even where there is some basis in fact, is prone to a significant number of external factors that can have a hugely negative impact on our assessment\/judgement.<\/p>\n