Logical Reasoning

PT119 · S2 · Q11 Career consultant: The most popular

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Career consultant: The most popular career advice suggests emphasizing one’s strengths to employers and downplaying one’s weaknesses.

Conclusion

Research shows that you shouldn't emphasize your strengths and downplay your weaknesses to your employers.

Evidence

In a study of 314 managers, the ones who were self-deprecating were more positively viewed by their employees.

Evaluation

This feels like an Irrelevant Response. The issue in the conclusion is how employees should behave towards their employers.

The advice, which aligns with our common sense, is that employees should play up their strengths and downplay their weaknesses (making it more likely they'll get to keep their job and maybe get promoted).

Meanwhile, this study cited is about how employers behaved towards their employees. The power dynamic is completely reversed there, so we shouldn't expect the behavioral advice to match. Bosses aren't going to get fired by their employees, but they could certainly be hated by their employees if the boss doesn't show grace and humility.

Goal

Look for an answer complaining about the fact that this study is about how employers behaved, when we're trying to analyze a claim about how employees should behave.

11.

The career consultant's reasoning is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it

  1. Correct

    bases a conclusion about how

    Why this is right

    The conclusion is about how employers would respond to self-deprecation (were their employees to stop emphasizing strengths and downplaying weaknesses), whereas the evidence is about how employees responded to their bosses' self-deprecation.

    Skill tested: Flaw · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    62% picked this

  2. ignores the possibility that what

    Not an Objection

    The "self-deprecation" (playing down your strengths / playing up your weaknesses) was the relevant part of that study. It would have been an objection if the employees had been responding to the humor, not the self-deprecation.

    5% picked this

  3. ignores the possibility that non-self-deprecating

    Not as Good an Objection

    This one isn't nothing, but it's way less important or strong of an objection compared to (A). If this answer said that "self-aggrandizing humor" might have been viewed even more positively than self-deprecating humor, it would have a lot more punch. The advice the author is fighting against says to "play up your strengths, downplay your weaknesses". This answer is only really going to feel like an objection if it's saying that "playing up strengths" was better than self-deprecation. You can avoid self-deprecation (non-self-deprecating humor) without playing up your strengths. So this doesn't give us a good comparison between the study of employers and the original advice to employees.

    13% picked this

  4. infers from the fact that

    Bad Conclusion Match

    The author infers from the fact that self-deprecating humor was viewed positively that "the advice about playing up strengths was misguided". The author is never concerned about humorous vs. non-humorous. This conversation is only about whether it's more advantageous to be self-aggrandizing or self-deprecating.

    6% picked this

  5. bases a conclusion about certain

    Bad Evidence Match

    The author does make a conclusion about certain career advice. Does her evidence only critique one part of that advice? No. Saying that self-deprecation worked for these managers, is attacking both the idea that we should play up our strengths and downplay our weaknesses. Those aren't really two different things — they're two sides of the same coin. The advice says "make yourself look better" and the author's evidence is saying that these managers fared better when they "made themselves look worse".

    15% picked this

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