Question

While researching a paper for school, Dan gets excited to learn about red meat causing cancer. He searches for several papers supporting the view that diets high in red meat will cause cancer. Dan's lack of searching for contrasting evidence indicates that he was susceptible to which of the following?

A. Representative heuristic
B. Availability heuristic
C. Hindsight bias
D. Confirmation bias

Answer 1

Dan exhibited confirmation bias by only searching for information that supported his preexisting belief about red meat's link to cancer, without considering opposing evidence.

Step-by-step explanation:

Dan's lack of searching for contrasting evidence while researching the topic of red meat and cancer indicates he was susceptible to confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias is the cognitive tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one's preexisting beliefs or hypotheses, while giving disproportionately less consideration to alternate possibilities.

In Dan's case, he focused only on the research that supported his idea that red meat causes cancer and did not look for research that might contradict this view.