ACADEMIA Letters The Infuence of Outcome Knowledge: Hindsight Bias in the Context of a Suicide April Bleske-Rechek, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Hailey BeBeau, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Disclaimer The authors declare no conficts of interest. This research was funded by faculty/student col- laborative research grants from the Ofce of Research and Sponsored Programs at the Uni- versity of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. The authors thank Samuel Rechek for comments on previous drafts of this article. Corre- spondence concerning this article should be addressed to April Bleske-Rechek, PhD, Depart- ment of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, 105 Garfeld Avenue, Eau Claire, WI 54702, United States. Abstract Suicides are often followed by intense blame of self and others, such that those who are left behind feel they or others should have been able to see the signs. What may seem clear in hindsight, however, is often unclear in foresight. In Study 1, we investigated the efect of outcome knowledge on college students’ (N=345) perceptions of a suicide. Students attend- ing a public U.S. university frst read a hypothetical conversation between a student and her professor. Then, they received an outcome knowledge manipulation: They either read that the student went on to die by suicide or they read a sentence that had no mention of suicide. Afterwards, participants evaluated the likelihood of suicide, the student’s depression severity, Academia Letters, August 2021 Corresponding Author: April Bleske-Rechek, bleskeal@uwec.edu Citation: Bleske-Rechek, A., BeBeau, H. (2021). The Infuence of Outcome Knowledge: Hindsight Bias in the Context of a Suicide. Academia Letters, Article 2649. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL2649. 1 ©2021 by the authors — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0