The East European Revolution of 1989: Is it surprising that we were surprised?
探讨为何1989年东欧革命让世界普遍感到意外，引用调查数据说明多数人未能预见，并分析事后看来不可避免的革命为何事前未被察觉，涉及偏好伪造和革命浪潮理论。
Many aspects of the East European Revolution are controversial, but on one point everyone agrees: it caught the world by surprise. Even local dissidents were stunned by the sudden turn of events. We will never know how many East Europeans did foresee the explosion of 1989. But at each step, accounts painted a picture of nations united in amazement. To my knowledge, only one study addresses the issue systematically. Four months after the breaching of the Berlin Wall, the Allensbach Institute asked a broad sample of East Germans: A year ago did you expect such a peaceful revolution? Only 5 percent answered though 18 percent responded yes, but not that fast. Fully 76 percent admitted to being totally surprised. These figures are all the more remarkable given the I-knew-it-would-happen fallacy-the human tendency to exaggerate foreknowledge (Baruch Fischhoff and Ruth Beyth, 1975). Yet in hindsight the revolution appears as inevitable. In each of the six countries the leadership was despised, economic promises remained unfulfilled, and basic freedoms existed only on paper. More importantly, winds of change in the Soviet Union were making Soviet intervention increasingly unlikely. But if the revolution was indeed inevitable, why was it not foreseen? What kept us from noticing signs that now, after the fact, are so plainly visible? I. Preference Falsification and Revolutionary Bandwagons