Logical Reasoning

PT148 · S1 · Q18 Liang: Watching movies in which

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Liang: Watching movies in which violence is portrayed as an appropriate way to resolve problems increases levels of aggression in viewers.

Liang's first claim

When movies show violence as an appropriate way of resolving problems, it increases levels of aggression in viewers. Does Sarah agree that condoned violent problem-solving increases aggression in viewers?

No she disagrees. She says that watching violent characters purges the viewer of such aggression.

Liang's second claim

Children's access to movies where violence solves problems should be limited. Does Sarah agree that children should be kept from seeing movies where violence solves problems?

She doesn't talk about it. She says that access to these movies for mature audiences should not be restricted.

Evaluate

Usually on Agree questions (which are very rare), the two people fundamentally disagree, and so the correct answer isn't an explicit agreement but rather some underlying background truth or assumption they both accept.

In this case they clearly diverge on whether watching violence in movies increases aggression or purges aggression.

But it looks like they'd agree that .

Sarah doesn't comment on whether children's access to violent movies should be restricted, but given her belief that watching violence purges us of aggression, we'd have no reason to think she's worried about children seeing these movies. However, she did conclude that "we shouldn't restrict access to mature audiences", so maybe she was saying to Liang,

Goal

Ultimately, we will just pick the answer for which we feel like we have the most dual-support, an answer that could be supported if not proved by each paragraph.

18.

The dialogue provides the most support for inferring that Liang and Sarah agree with each other that

  1. people who experience an emotion

    No Support Person 1

    We have no way to derive any ideas about vicarious emotions being purged from the first speaker, since Liang didn't speak to any of that.

    9% picked this

  2. the members of a mature

    No Support from Either

    Liang didn't speak about mature audiences at all. Sarah didn't talk about how likely or unlikely a mature audience would be to believe that violence can be an appropriate way to solve problems.

    16% picked this

  3. if violence in certain movies

    No Support from Person 2

    Neither person talked about violence in movies causing violence in viewers. Liang said it increases levels of aggression, but that's not necessarily violence. Sarah didn't explicitly talk about restricting access to anyone. She explicitly talked about not restricting access. So we have no support from her for this claim.

    16% picked this

  4. Correct

    the effects of dramatic depictions

    Why this is right

    Haha, what a garbage correct answer. As we mentioned before, the correct answer to Agree is usually some background fact / assumption that both people implicitly recognize. We can tell that Liang thinks that the effects of dramatic depictions of violence are at least partially understood, because Liang acts as though it's a known fact that "watching depictions of violence as an appropriate way to resolve problems has the effect of increasing levels of aggression in viewers". And we know Sarah would agree because she acts as though it's a known fact that "watching depictions of violent characters has the effect of letting the audience experience aggressive emotions and purge them." Since they both cited "causal facts" about the effects of violence in movies, they must both think that we at least partially understand the effects of violence in movies.

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

    57% picked this

  5. children are more likely than

    No Support from Either

    Neither person made any comparisons about whether adults or children would be more likely to be attracted to violent dramas.

    2% picked this

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