Logical Reasoning

PT154 · S4 · Q24 People who have experienced a

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People who have experienced a traumatic event but who did not subsequently develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) tend to produce higher levels of the hormone cortisol when exposed to stress than do people who have not experienced traumatic events.

Conclusion

Experiencing a traumatic event can affect how much cortisol one produces in response to stress.

Evidence

People who have experienced trauma (w/o PTSD) tend to produce more cortisol when exposed to stress than do people who haven't experienced trauma.

Evaluate

Since the evidence is a Curious Comparison and the conclusion is inferring some sort of Causal claim, we can use our Curious Fact / Explanation mindset.

Curious Fact ... Why is it that people who have had a traumatic event produce higher levels of cortisol when exposed to stress? Author's Explanation ... Experiencing a traumatic event apparently changed how much cortisol their bodies produce in response to stress.

The two pressure points are always - Alternate Explanations for the curious fact - the plausibility of the Author's Explanation

How about that whole PTSD thing. Did that matter?

Hard to say. It certainly feels like a detail-clue they wouldn't accidentally put in there if they weren't planning to use it.

People who experienced a traumatic event but do subsequently develop PTSD are not involved in the curious comparison.

There are three groups, but we're only comparing the first two: no trauma | trauma, no PTSD | trauma, yes PTSD

Goal

Since this is Weaken, the correct answer is more likely to be an Alternate Explanation for why people who have experienced trauma tend to produce more cortisol in response to stress.

But it might undermine the plausibility that experiencing the trauma changed their cortisol response.

24.

Which one of the following, if true, most weakens the argument above?

  1. Medical conditions sometimes affect how

    Weak

    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.

    30% picked this

  2. Correct

    Producing more cortisol than average

    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% picked this

  3. People experiencing a traumatic event

    No Impact

    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?

    6% picked this

  4. Many effective treatments for PTSD

    Out of Scope: people with PTSD

    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.

    6% picked this

  5. Experiencing a traumatic event can

    Strengthens

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

    14% picked this

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