12. Recently, Tara has been following a new diet plan that c…
12. Recently, Tara has been following a new diet plan that claims to help her lose weight quickly. She strongly believes this diet is effective. When she encounters a testimonial on a social media platform from a user who claims to have lost 20 pounds on the same diet, she immediately feels more confident in the diet’s effectiveness, significantly boosting her belief in the diet plan. Yet, when she reads a scientific study stating that the diet plan has a high dropout rate and only shows short-term results for a small percentage of people, she dismisses the study, thinking it doesn’t apply to her. Her belief in the diet’s long-term effectiveness barely changes. What is a single psychological principle of persuasion that could be at play here (i.e., why Tara was so readily persuaded by the social media post but unpersuaded by the scientific study)?