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Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document 418-1 Filed 11/08/21 Page5of14 Comey, Moe, Pomerantz and Rohrbach November 1, 2021 Page 5 hindsight, labeled “grooming” or otherwise imputed as knowledge to onlookers. Hindsight bias refers to the tendency to overestimate how predictable or foreseeable an event is after being informed about the outcome of an event. Simply put, knowledge of the outcome of the event, i.e. Epstein pleaded guilty to having sexual contact with post-pubescent minors, makes the importance of pre-conviction behaviors obvious. Retrospective judgments about the predictability or foreseeability of the outcome are systemically inflated or biased compared to judgments made without information about the outcome. Hindsight bias refers to the tendency to overestimate how predictable an event is after learning the outcome of the event (Fischhoff, 1975). For example, after a political election, people believe their pre-election estimates of the outcome were closer to the outcome than they actually were (Blank, Fischer, & Erdfelder, 2003). Hindsight bias has been discussed in over 800 scholarly articles across a variety of different domains including medicine, financial decision making, consumer satisfaction, and within the legal domain (see Roese & Vohs, 2012; Arkes, 2013; Strohmaier et al., 2021) and using a variety of different experimental designs (Pohl & Erdfelder, 2016) and a variety of different stimuli such as written vignettes, visual stimuli (e.g., Bernstein & Harley, 2007), and auditory stimuli (e.g., Bernstein, Wilson, Pernat, & Meilleur, 2012). Even individuals with specialized training and expertise succumb to hindsight bias (Musch & Wagner, 2007). One notable study detected hindsight bias among actual judges making civil liability decisions, in which judges with outcome knowledge perceived the harm to be significantly more foreseeable than judges who did not receive outcome information and were thus more likely to render a finding of negligence (Oeberst & Goeckenjan, 2016). Another notable study detected hindsight bias in a sample of mental health professionals who gauged the dangerousness of a psychiatric patient; again, outcome knowledge affected the reported dangerousness and predictably of harm posed by the patient (Beltrani et al., 2018). Hindsight bias affects legal judgments. Civil or criminal prosecutions related to events occurring decades ago may be compromised by this bias in many ways, from the investigation— either ignoring evidence or attributing significance in hindsight—through the presentation of evidence, to the deliberation of any factfinder. Awareness of the impact of the hindsight bias should temper any claims that so called “grooming” behaviors should have been noticed and either reported or avoided and that failing to do so constitutes knowledge or intent. c. Opinions Related to the Halo Effect The term "Halo effect" was coined by Thorndike (1920) a century ago. The Halo effect is a cognitive bias in impression formation whereby the positive evaluation of one characteristic has a radiating effect on how other, non-related characteristics of the individual are evaluated. For example, one classic study found that physical attractiveness influenced evaluations of the target's personality, life satisfaction, and expected future personal and occupational success — despite the fact that no information about any of these attributes was provided (Dion et al., 1972). Physical attractiveness has also been found to influence culpability judgments, with attractive individuals being held less-responsible than unattractive individuals (Dion, 1972; Efran, 1974). Halo effects have been found to be cued by factors other than attractiveness, such as the described status of the target (Wilson, 1968), the name of the target (Harari & McDavid, 1973), and even one's mood when evaluating the target (Forgas, 2011). Studies have documented. DOJ-OGR-00006185