Following a corporate disaster such as bankruptcy, people in general and damaged parties, in particular, want to know what happened and whether the company's directors are to blame. The accurate assessment of directors’ liability can be jeopardized by having to judge in hindsight with full knowledge of the adverse outcome. The present study investigates whether professional legal investigators such as judges and lawyers are affected by hindsight bias and outcome bias when evaluating directors’ conduct in a bankruptcy case. Additionally, to advance our understanding of the mechanisms underlying these biases, we also examine whether free will beliefs can predict susceptibility to hindsight bias and outcome bias in this context. In two studies (total N = 1,729), we demonstrate that legal professionals tend to judge a director's actions more negatively and perceive bankruptcy as more foreseeable in hindsight than in foresight and that these effects are significantly stronger for those who endorse the notion that humans have free will. This contribution is particularly timely considering the many companies that are currently going bankrupt or are facing bankruptcy amidst the COVID‐19 pandemic.

中文翻译：

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在判断董事责任和自由意志信念的作用方面的事后偏见和结果偏见

在企业破产（例如破产）之后，一般人尤其是当事方都想知道发生了什么，以及公司董事是否应受指责。董事必须对不利后果有充分的了解，事后再判断，这可能会危及对董事责任的准确评估。本研究调查在评估破产案件中董事的行为时，法官和律师等专业法律调查员是否受到事后偏见和结果偏见的影响。此外，为了增进我们对这些偏见的潜在机制的理解，我们还研究了自由意志信念是否可以预测在这种情况下对事后偏见和结果偏见的敏感性。在两项研究中（总N = 1,729），我们证明法律专业人士倾向于对董事的行为做出较负面的判断，并且认为破产比事后预见要比预见更可预见，而且对于那些认可人有自由意志的人来说，这些影响要明显得多。考虑到许多正在COVID-19大流行中破产或面临破产的公司，这一贡献特别及时。