Doug is enamored of the humanistic approach to understanding personality. He identifies the five most "evolved" people he personally knows—folks who are smart, witty, spiritually-centered, creative, and adventuresome—and interviews each in depth. At the conclusion of his investigations he finds that they are all quite self-actualized. What is the central problem with Doug's approach?

Question

A. He may have fallen prey to the blacktop illusion; Doug was unable to see past the "humanistic horizon" proposed by Maslow.
B. He may have fallen prey to the simulation heuristic; he imagined what these people would be like, and interacted with them accordingly.
C. He may have fallen prey to an elusive correlation; he underestimated the magnitude of the relationship between personality and behavior.
D. He may have fallen prey to the confirmation bias; Doug interviewed people he thought would be self-actualized, and discovered they seemed to be self-actualized.

Answer 1

D. He may have fallen prey to the confirmation bias; Doug interviewed people he thought would be self-actualized, and discovered they seemed to be self-actualized.