Question

On halloween night, jackie and some friends visited an abandoned house that was said to be haunted. jackie heard a strange noise and was convinced that she had heard the footsteps of a ghost. but beth, who also heard the sound, insisted that it was just a broken door rattling in the wind. jackie's interpretation probably reflects:

Answer 1

I believe the answer is: Her perceptual set that the house was haunted

Perceptual set refers to human tendency to process the information that we see based on one particular aspect of data while ignoring the others. In the example above, the aspect of data that Jackie used to make her perception is that the house of haunted. So every new information that she receive at that place would be automatically perceived as an extension of her pre-exisitng belief.