In cognitive psychology, the confirmation bias refers to the tendency to:

• A. Seek out and interpret information in ways that confirm one's preexisting beliefs or hypotheses
• B. Overestimate the likelihood of rare events occurring
• C. Remember information that is most recent, regardless of its relevance
• D. Attribute other people's behavior to their personality rather than situational factors

Answer: (A)

Verified step by step guidance

1. Understand the concept of confirmation bias in cognitive psychology, which is a type of cognitive bias where individuals favor information that confirms their existing beliefs or hypotheses.
2. Recognize that confirmation bias involves actively seeking out, interpreting, and remembering information in a way that supports one's preconceptions, while often ignoring or discounting contradictory evidence.
3. Compare the given options to the definition of confirmation bias to identify which one best matches this tendency.
4. Eliminate options that describe other cognitive biases or errors, such as overestimating rare events (availability heuristic), remembering recent information regardless of relevance (recency effect), or attributing behavior to personality rather than situation (fundamental attribution error).
5. Select the option that states 'Seek out and interpret information in ways that confirm one's preexisting beliefs or hypotheses' as it accurately describes confirmation bias.