Alexandra is told that research supports the value of cosmetic surgery for boosting self-esteem. belinda is told that the esteem-enhancing value of cosmetic surgery has been refuted by research. both women consider the research findings to be common sense. this best illustrates the power of
a) random sampling. b) overconfidence. c) the hindsight bias. d) illusory correlation. e) the double-blind procedure.

C. the hindsight bias

Explanation:

the hindsight bias refers to people tendencies to see an situation that they already seen before as predictable. They will assume that the outcome will be  pretty much the same as what they've experienced before.

From the excerpt above, we can see that Alexandra and Belinda the research that they read as 'the truth' without even conducting further investigation.

This most likely happened because both of them already has a pre-conceived notion regarding cosmetic surgery.

Alexandra always believe that cosmetic surgery can increase self-esteem while Belinda has always believed that cosmetic surgery cannot increase self-esteem even before they read the research. Both of them only treat the research as a small confirmation for the bias that they already held.