Historian: One traditional childrearing practice in the nineteenth century was to make a child who misbehaved sit alone outside.
Statements
In the 1800's, people would make children who misbehaved sit alone outside.
Passersby would be thinking, "Look at that kid who misbehaved."
Nowadays, many child psychologists would say that this was a dumb punishment, since it hurts the kid's self-esteem, which makes them less confident as adults.
pivot (however)
Adults who were raised with the "sit outside" tradition grew up just as confident as adults who weren't raised with that tradition.
Evaluate
This is a pretty loose paragraph of historical facts and opinions. It doesn't suggest any conditional logic / mathematical thinking.
But we do have a Pivot word before the final sentence. Usually, when an Inference question prefaces that final claim with a pivot word, the correct answer represents a safely worded way of Reconciling the Pivot idea with what came before it.
What came directly before the pivot was, . But, after the pivot, it seems like we're hearing that this idea is wrong!
After all, whether you were forced to sit outside or not, you grew up to have the same level of confidence as adults.
Does that mean the psychologists were wrong to think that "sit outside" doesn't really damage self-esteem, or wrong to think that damage to self-esteem makes kids less confident as adults? Or were they right about all that, and the kids who weren't told to sit outside grow up to be just as confident because their upbringing had some other tradition that chipped away at their self-esteem and confidence?
Goal
It's really too hard to know how reconcile the pivot idea with what came before it, so we just want to look for the most supportable answer we can find.