Tom Saw a Fad Weight-Loss Program Advertised on Late Night

question 25

Multiple Choice

Tom saw a fad weight-loss program advertised on late night television.The ad claimed that deep breathing exercises would speed up metabolism,causing people to lose weight.He mailed a cheque for $99.95.When the plan arrived,Tom rearranged his day so that he could complete the breathing exercises as scheduled.They made him nauseated and dizzy,and before long,Tom's friends began to think that he was "dizzy," and they started avoiding him.After the end of the ten-week program,Tom got on the scale and saw that he hadn't lost an ounce! Still,he remained enthusiastic and thought,"I may not have lost any weight,but I feel so much healthier!" This situation is best explained by

• A) the self-fulfilling prophecy.
• B) delusional thinking.
• C) self-defeating perceptions.
• D) the justification of suffering.
• E) accurate self-perceptions.

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Definitions:

Population

The complete collection of people or objects being studied in a statistical review.

Margin of Error

A measure of the accuracy of a public opinion poll, representing the extent to which the sample results might differ from those of the entire population.

Confidence

In statistics, it refers to the degree of certainty or probability that a calculated interval contains the true parameter value.

Normal Distribution

A bell-shaped frequency distribution that is symmetric about the mean, showing that data near the mean are more frequent in occurrence than data far from the mean.