Case file
Self-Consistency Bias
- Filed under
- Not Enough Meaning
- Also recorded as
- consistency bias
The charge
Self-consistency bias is reconstructing past beliefs and behavior so they fit your current identity and story.
How it operates
Memory prefers coherence over precision, so the past gets edited to match the present self.
Logged incidents
- Incident 01
A leader claims she always supported remote work.
- Incident 02
An investor rewrites past risk appetite after gains.
- Incident 03
A PM remembers having been customer-centric all along after joining customer success calls.
What to watch for
Ask: Do my records support this story, or only my current self-image?
Recommended action
Keep decision journals and compare memory against dated notes before drawing lessons.
Known associates
- Telescoping EffectTelescoping effect is misremembering when past events happened, often pulling distant events closer and…
- Rosy RetrospectionRosy retrospection is remembering past experiences as better than they felt at the time.
- Hindsight BiasHindsight bias is the tendency to feel, after an outcome is known, that it was predictable all along.
- Outcome BiasOutcome bias is judging the quality of a decision mainly by its result instead of by the information and…
- Moral LuckMoral luck is judging people differently for similar choices because luck changed the eventual outcome.
- DeclinismDeclinism is seeing the past as better than it was and the future as likely worse than it will be.
Source of record