Our tendency to notice and recall instances where a premonition of an unlikely phone call is followed by the actual call heavily fosters:
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Answer: D. an illusory correlation
Explanation
An illusory correlation happens when people falsely perceive a strong relationship between unrelated events. Unusual coincidence of phone calls makes rare occurrences stand out vividly in human memory. Confirmation bias drives individuals to remember confirming instances while ignoring all non-events. Human cognition often relies on heuristics, which are mental shortcuts that can lead to errors. The availability heuristic makes memorable events seem more frequent than they actually are statistically. Psychologists use these concepts to explain superstition and paranormal beliefs in populations.
Recognizing cognitive biases is crucial for scientists conducting objective and valid empirical research. This phenomenon explains why people believe lucky charms influence random games of chance. Avoiding biased thinking helps professionals make better decisions in medicine and finance. The placebo effect involves healing due to patient belief in a fake medical treatment. The false consensus effect is the tendency to overestimate how much others share our beliefs. Replication refers to repeating scientific studies to verify whether initial findings are reliable.
- Subject
- Psychology
- Category
- Psychology
- Topic
- —
- Difficulty
- medium
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