Question

What is going wrong with Maria’s reasoning in the following example? Maria was pretty sure that gun control is an effective measure against violent crime and expected it to go down when states introduce strict gun control laws. Subsequently her state introduced stricter gun control and violent crime did not go down. Her response was to think: well, maybe crime would have been even higher this year without the gun control! So maybe the gun control was effective! She remains just as confident that gun control is effective against violent crime. Question 6Answer a. ignoring regression to the mean b. heads I win, tails we're even c. neglect of priors d. nothing is wrong with this reasoning e. outcome framing

Answer 1

The problem with Maria's reasoning is neglect of priors. She is not taking into account the prior evidence or data that suggests gun control may not be as effective as she initially believed. Instead, she is attributing any decrease in crime solely to the introduction of stricter gun control laws, without considering other potential factors or the possibility of regression to the mean. This is a bias known as confirmation bias, where she is interpreting information in a way that confirms her pre-existing beliefs.

Step-by-step explanation: