Practice Quiz

EPPP Psychology

Category - Social and Cultural Bases of Behavior

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Harry was recently robbed at gunpoint. He believes that only bad people are robbed at gunpoint and thus he must be a bad person. Harry spends most of his recovery trying to plan how to be a better person so that he does not get robbed again. Harry’s belief that only bad people are robbed at gunpoint can best be explained by:
  1. The just-world hypothesis
  2. Cognitive dissonance
  3. The fundamental attribution error
  4. Hindsight bias
Explanation
Answer: A - Harry’s belief that only bad people are robbed at gunpoint can best be explained by the just-world hypothesis.
The just-world hypothesis is the belief that “good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people.” It is a type of cognitive bias that often results in faulty conclusions about the world. In Harry’s case, he believes he is a bad person because a bad thing happened to him. In reality, bad things happen to all sorts of people all the time; it is not an indicator that Harry is either a good or bad person.
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