What Lessons Can We Draw from the Fact That Americans

question 29

Multiple Choice

What lessons can we draw from the fact that Americans believed that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction or that President Obama was foreign-born and ineligible to be President?

• A) Most Americans favor cognitive dissonance and those who believed such stories about Saddam Hussein and President Obama were a small fraction of the country.
• B) Americans tend to blindly follow opinion leaders because the lack of legitimate political information makes it hard for Americans to discover the truth.
• C) People tend to pay more attention and more credence to sources and information that confirm rather than challenge their beliefs.
• D) Americans will believe just about anything.

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Definitions:

Personality Change

Refers to significant and enduring alterations in an individual's character traits, behaviors, or attitudes over time.

Major Life Events

Significant occurrences or transitions in an individual's life that can have profound effects on their psychological and physical well-being.

Longitudinal

An observational research method that involves studying the same subjects over a period of time.

Cross-Sectional

A type of observational study design where data is collected from a population, or a representative subset, at one specific point in time.