Logical Reasoning

PT146 · S1 · Q5 Researchers asked 100 fifty-year-olds

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Researchers asked 100 fifty-year-olds and 100 twenty-year- olds whether they gave blood.

Conclusion

There is reason for skepticism about the conclusion that

Evidence

Many people hesitate to admit that their behavior does not conform to social expectations.

Evaluate

There was a study with a Curious Fact (an asymmetric comparison): why is it that twice as many 50 year olds as 20 year olds reported that they sometimes give blood?

The researchers concluded one potential Explanation: 50 year olds are more altruistic than 20 year olds (obviously assuming that being more altruistic is causing them to be more likely to give blood).

This author is pushing back against that conclusion by suggesting an Alternate Explanation:

Goal

We're being asked how our author is calling into question the researchers' conclusion. We'll take any answer that seems descriptively true, but we'd probably anticipate language like, .

The reasoning above calls into question a conclusion drawn from statistical data by

showing that the data are
Out of Scope: unrepresentative sample
The author's only objection to the logic is, "Not so fast -- remember, many people hesitate to admit their behavior doesn't conform to societal expectations." Nothing in that sentence seems to allude to an unrepresentative sample. The author isn't implying that the 50 year olds in the study, or the 20 year olds, were atypical for their age group.
6% picked this
Correct
offering an alternative explanation of
Why this is right
The author's objection to the logic was, "Not so fast -- remember, many people hesitate to admit their behavior doesn't conform to societal expectations." This objection is suggesting that maybe the reason the 50 year olds were twice as likely to say "I sometimes give blood" is not because they are more altruistic but because they are more afraid to admit that they don't give blood. After all, society thinks it would be proper and helpful for able-bodied people to give blood, so a 50 year old might be hesitant to admit that they're shirking their societal duties. Some people might be reading this answer thinking, "All the last sentence says is that many people hesitate to admit to non-conforming behavior. The author never said that 50 year olds were more reluctant to admit to that behavior than 20 year olds. So how do we know that the author is offering it as an alternate explanation for the study's skewed results?" That's a fair question, with the "unfair" answer of, "Cuz you just have to figure out the storyline the author is presumably selling. The test writer is leaving a lot of blanks for our common sense to try to fill in. If someone is resisting a causal interpretation of a study and saying, 'maybe we shouldn't be so hasty in concluding that. After all, consideration X', then that person is either suggesting that X is an alternate causal interpretation for the data, or suggesting that X makes the researchers' conclusion seem implausible."
Skill tested: Method · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
83% picked this
showing that one cannot directly
Out of Scope: can't directly observe
The author's only objection to the logic is, "Not so fast -- remember, many people hesitate to admit their behavior doesn't conform to societal expectations." Nothing in that sentence seems to suggest that it's impossible to directly observe altruism.
9% picked this
criticizing the motives of the
Out of Scope: researchers' motives
The author's only objection to the logic is, "Not so fast -- remember, many people hesitate to admit their behavior doesn't conform to societal expectations." Nothing in that sentence seems to criticize the motives of the researchers. That last sentence is talking about the motives of the survey respondents.
1% picked this
offering a specific counterexample
Out of Scope: counterexample
The author's only objection to the logic is, "Not so fast -- remember, many people hesitate to admit their behavior doesn't conform to societal expectations." Nothing in that sentence offers a counterexample. A counterexample to the conclusion that "50 year olds are more altruistic than 20 year olds" would be talking about a specific 20 year old who was at least as altruistic as a specific 50 year old. Or it could cite a different situation in which the younger crew was more altruistic than the older crew (with roughly the same ages). But the author's objection isn't talking about altruism at all.
2% picked this

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