Question

Tom strongly believes that raising tax rates for the rich is the only way to steer the economy out of a recession because it is likely to generate greater tax revenue for the government. even when his friend sam pointed at factual information illustrating that the government indeed receives greater tax revenues when tax rates are uniformly low for all americans, tom refused to accept sam's input and change his attitude. interestingly, the input provided by sam further strengthened tom's initial attitude. in this instance, _____ can be said to have occurred.

Answer 1

The answer to the blank space is a contrast effect. A contrast effect is defined as a psychological bias where individuals are prone to evaluating that a stimulus is more positive because a similar stimulus was previously perceived as negative.

This is what is going on with Tom; despite having been presented information by Sam regarding how low taxes in general creates higher tax revenue, Tom still believes that taxing the rich would generate greater tax revenue to reduce the effect of recession.