Many smokers like to point to the late George Burns, a famous actor who smoked cigars continuously for many years and lived to be nearly a hundred, as evidence that smoking is relatively harmless. These individuals tend to ignore the thousands of people who die every year from lung cancer. They are utilizing
A) the availability heuristic.
B) confirmation bias.
C) the representativeness heuristic.
D) hindsight bias.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The individuals who point to George Burns are demonstrating confirmation bias, which is the tendency to seek out or interpret information in a way that supports one's preexisting beliefs or biases. They are selectively focusing on this one example that seems to support their belief that smoking is harmless, while ignoring the vast amount of evidence to the contrary. The availability heuristic (A) refers to the tendency to overestimate the likelihood of events based on how easily examples or instances of those events come to mind. The representativeness heuristic (C) refers to the tendency to make judgments or assumptions about individuals or groups based on how closely they resemble our stereotypical or prototypical image of those individuals or groups. Hindsight bias (D) refers to the tendency to overestimate one's ability to have predicted an event after the fact.

Many Smokers Like to Point to the Late George Burns