Question

Stan loves junk food and eats it every day in vast quantities. Stan's wife keeps telling him that research results show that he is killing himself with his diet, but Stan simply points to his grandfather who lived to be 92 and ate junk food most of his life. Stan is using ______ to justify his junk food eating behavior.

Answer 1

Stan is using a person-who reasoning to justify his junk food eating behavior.

Step-by-step explanation:

In psychology, the definition of reasoning is the mental process through which people find reasons for beliefs, ideas, actions, conclusions, or feelings. In Stan's case, he is using what is called person-who reasoning. In that type of reasoning, the individual questions well-established research findings because he/she knows of one instance, one person, who violates those findings. Stan is doing precisely that when he justifies his behavior by using his grandfather as a reason. He is failing to see that he is focusing on the exception, not on the rule.