Question

jasmine has an assignment in her psychology class to write a report, using credible sources, about the psychological effects of pregnancy and abortion on teenagers. jasmine believes that abortion is wrong. as she is evaluating her research, she finds several credible studies that have concluded that, for pregnant teenagers, the psychological effects of having the baby are not nearly as severe as those from aborting the baby. when she evaluates sources that argue that abortion is not more psychologically damaging than having the baby, however, she finds they are not credible, and she decides not to use them for her report. this could be an example of
○ misinformation.
○ attribution bias.
○ defensive reading.
○ confirmation bias.

Explanation:

Confirmation bias is the tendency to seek out, favor, and give more weight to information that aligns with one's pre-existing beliefs, while dismissing or devaluing contradictory information. Jasmine already believes abortion is wrong, so she accepts sources that support her view (that abortion has worse psychological effects) and rejects sources that contradict it, which fits this definition. Misinformation is false information, which is not the case here. Attribution bias focuses on how people explain others' behaviors, not source evaluation. Defensive reading is not a standard psychological bias term for this type of selective source acceptance.

Answer:

confirmation bias.