Question

Mrs. Abel believes that students from low-income families are poor readers. When some of her students from lower-income families score well on a standardized reading achievement test, Mrs. Abel interprets their performance as due to luck because "poor students will be poor readers." Her thinking can be best interpreted as ______.

Answer 1

Belief perseverance

Step-by-step explanation:

In this example, Mrs. Abel has a prejudiced belief that was formed before the existence of any evidence. When evidence is gathered, and this contradicts her assumptions, she is still unable to change her opinion. This is called belief perseverance. The term refers to the inability of people to change their own beliefs upon receiving new information that contradicts or refutes these beliefs. Belief perseverance is one of the reasons why it might be very difficult to successfully change someone's mind.