Jamal believes that he will do well on his upcoming chemistry exam. Without being aware of it, he selectively studies and reviews only information that he is familiar with and already knows. In this case, the _____ may be doing Jamal a disservice, as it keeps him from adequately studying for the exam.

When making decisions, people often only take into account certain aspects and set aside others for various reasons. We all do this many times, but you have to be careful about the result you can throw. When a person only looks at one aspect of something or any situation in general and does not put into perspective that another result can occur, we are facing the focusing effect.

The focusing effect is defined as a cognitive bias where the person gives much importance or emphasizes the details of a particular situation and does not take it into account as a whole. When a person only takes a part of something and not everything, this can lead the person to make mistakes in the future because its bases are only concerning an extract of something.

In the case of Jamal, he decides to focus on the information he only knows and has dominion over. He is confident that he will pass the chemistry exam, but he does not study further and simply focuses on the information of which he is proficient.

When a person experiences the focussing effect, they can get frustrated because they can get results that they did not expect. If Jamal does not study more and only focuses on reviewing the contents he dominates, it may be that at the time of the exam he has to deal with important information that he decided to omit.