AP Psychology – Common Psychology Terms

Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for information that confirms our preconceptions and to ignore contradictory evidence. This means we actively seek out sources and data that support what we already believe, interpret ambiguous information in a way that reinforces our view, and remember supporting details more readily than those that oppose it. In real life, this shows up when people choose to read articles or consult experts who echo their beliefs, and discount or overlook evidence that challenges them. That focus on confirming what we think is exactly what the prompt describes. The other biases don’t fit this pattern. The representativeness heuristic is about judging how likely something is based on how closely it resembles a familiar category, not about seeking confirmatory information. The availability heuristic relies on what’s most memorable or easiest to recall to judge frequency or probability. Hindsight bias is the "I knew it all along" feeling after an event, overestimating how predictable the outcome was.