PT154 S4 Q24 ExplanationPeople who have experienced a

Answer choices, explained

1. A

   Weak29% picked this

   Medical conditions sometimes affect how much cortisol people who have not experienced a traumatic event produce

   Weak: sometimes Out of Scope: haven't had trauma Because this answer is only saying, "a thing has happened at least once" (sometimes), it's unlikely to ever be a correct answer, on Strengthen / Weaken / Paradox It's talking about a different situation in which a medical condition changes someone's cortisol levels. Is that an alternate explanation? No, it's talking about people who didn't experience trauma. We want an alternate explanation for why the people with trauma have high cortisol reactions.

   29%
2. B

   Correct44% picked this

   Producing more cortisol than average in response to stress helps prevent a person from developing PTSD as a result

   Why this is right

   This answer confuses me, so feel free to let me know if you have a different take. My theory is that it is suggesting something resembling Reverse Causality. Whenever we're given correlations, such as "people w/ trauma but no PTSD tend to have higher cortisol response levels than do people who have not experienced a trauma" the author assumes one thing causes another, but often fails to establish that the supposed cause came before the supposed effect. In this case, the author is assuming that these people did not have higher than average cortisol responses to stress until after their traumatic experience. But maybe these people already had higher than average cortisol prior to this traumatic event. If so, then this answer would explain why these high cortisol people didn't develop PTSD. Given our correlation ... Trauma + No PTSD || Higher cortisol response The author is thinking that the left caused the right. This answer is suggesting that the right caused the left (the no PTSD part).

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

   44%
3. C

   No Impact7% picked this

   People experiencing a traumatic event produce more cortisol than they would under less severe

   This answer links trauma to cortisol and stress, but it only speaks to the current moment of being traumatized, not its aftermath. All people produce cortisol in response to stress. Traumatized people just produce more of it. But this answer choice is talking about during a traumatic event, you're producing tons of cortisol. Of course! You're experiencing a traumatic event, which sounds like an extreme form of stress. If stress produces cortisol responses in everyone, then we'd naturally expect that a super stressful traumatic event would have really high cortisol levels. But this answer isn't covering the causal mystery of this problem -- now that the trauma is over, why are these traumatized people still having higher than average cortisol responses to stress?

   7%
4. D

   Out of Scope: people with PTSD7% picked this

   Many effective treatments for PTSD are designed to reduce how much cortisol those with PTSD produce

   If an effective treatment for PTSD involves reducing the cortisol response, then we can infer that "high cortisol levels worsen PTSD symptoms". But what does that have to do with assessing why people who didn't get PTSD to have higher cortisol responses to stress? If anything it seems like this would strengthen, because it adds more associations between trauma and higher cortisol levels.

   7%
5. E

   Strengthens14% picked this

   Experiencing a traumatic event can damage the gland that produces cortisol, resulting in that gland

   This adds plausibility to the idea that trauma causes a new cortisol response, by explaining the causal mechanism by which that would work.

   14%