Question

Brian does not prepare well for an upcoming psychology exam. He is religious and prays regularly before the exam to score well. When he scores more than he expected, he assumes that he did well because he prayed. In the context of social thinking, this scenario illustrates the:__________

Answer 1

Answer:

This question is incomplete. Here are the missing options:

• principle of simplicity
• illusion of control
• representative heuristic
• gambler's fallacy

The answer is illusion of control.

Explanation:

The illusion of control bias occurs when a person overestimats the degree of control they have in a certain situation. It is believed to explain some people's attitudes toward religion and paranormal events.

The bias has been explained as a combination of an intention to cause a change and the relationship between an action and its consequence. In the passage, Brain believes he passed the exam because he wanted it to  happen and because the praying was followed by a good exam result.