Critical Reasoning

Researchers have concluded from a survey of people aged 65 that emotional well-being in adulthood is closely related to intimacy with siblings earlier in life. Those surveyed who had never had any siblings or who said that at college age they were emotionally distant from their siblings were emotionally less well adjusted at 65 than were those who had been close to at least one brother or sister.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the researchers' argument?

(A) As they get older, many people think more about their mortality and thus must confront feelings of loneliness and isolation.

(B) People suffering from the emotional distress of maladjustment usually remember being less intimate with other people than they actually were.

(C) Memory of one's past plays a greater role in the emotional well-being of older people than it does in that of younger people.

(D) Few people can correctly identify the true sources of their emotional well-being or of their emotional difficulties.

(E) Siblings are more likely to have major arguments and deep differences of opinion at college age than at any other time of their lives.

OA: B

I am not very convinced with the OA. It says people with emotional distress usually remember being less intimate with other people. Whereas according to the survey people who had never had any siblings or who at college age are emotionally distant from their siblings (X) are emotionally distressed (Y).

Basically X causes Y. Whereas OA says Y (emotional distress) makes them remember being less intimate (Z). Y causes Z.

I can't figure out the formal logic. Please explain.

Thanks in advance.

(B) People suffering from the emotional distress of maladjustment usually remember being less intimate with other people than they actually were.

If the people under distress remember lees about being intimate with other people then they are likely to report (in the survey) that they were not close to their siblings. So, the conclusion of the survey that people without siblings or who are distant from their siblings, are emotionally distressed at later stages of their lives, becomes misleading.

Hope this explanation clears things out for you.

By POE, got B and D. Then re read the B and D. Finally D.

I dont understand amd hence never use X causes Y or Y causes X approach.

One way to weaken a causal argument is to show that the stated relationship is reversed.

Survey responses suggest that having less intimacy with siblings earlier in life (X) causes emotional distress by age 65 (Y).

Answer choice B suggests that the relationship is not exactly as stated. Instead, emotional distress from maladjustment (Y) causes people to remember being less intimate than they actually were (X).

This answer choice weakens the causal argument by suggesting that the causal relationship is not as stated by the researchers.

I am not sure how answer to this CR is B.
The whole logic that X->Y and hence use the approach that Y->X WILL NOT work here.
The conclusion says something about a research. Then it says that, out of one kind of the two types of people surveyed, one kind of people were more emotionally unstable as compared to the other kind.
Frankly speaking, I don't really understand how to weaken this !!
Expert please help here !!

My 2 cents:

Conclusion - People who think (at age of 65) that they were not attached to their siblings when they were young are not emotionally well adjusted.

Assumption - The argument assumes that what people think is true.

How to weaken - What if people, due to emotional imbalance. could not remember things that happened during their adulthood. If this is true, then what they think at the age of 65 about their college days may not be correct. Thus weakens.

Hope it helps.

I can't eliminate "D"!!!
Please HELP

Researchers have concluded from a survey of people aged 65 that emotional well-being in adulthood is closely related to intimacy with siblings earlier in life. Those surveyed who had never had any siblings or who said that at college age they were emotionally distant from their siblings were emotionally less well adjusted at 65 than were those who had been close to at least one brother or sister.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the researchers' argument?

(D) Few people can correctly identify the true sources of their emotional well-being or of their emotional difficulties.

I can't eliminate "D"!!!
Please HELP

D is irrelevant because the argument does not rely on ppl's ability to understand why they are emotionally well/unwell. It relies only on the existence of a cause-effect relationship between intimacy in early life and emotional well-being in later life (whether the subjects tested are aware of this link doesn't matter).

Consider another argument that uses the same logic:
Research data shows that people with X tend to do Y. We conclude that having x causes people to do Y. How can we weaken this argument? Answer D's logic is that "people don't know why they do Y" weakens the argument. This is not true; whether ppl know this information has nothing to do with the argument itself.

Another example; same logic:
People who get fewer than 5hrs of sleep a day tend to suffer from chronic fatigue. Therefore, getting too little sleep causes chronic fatigue.

does the following weaken? "Few people who suffer from chronic fatigue know the reason". No, it is irrelevant because it doesn't impact the logic of the argument in any way.

Answer D is wrong. The right answer (B) suggests that the data is biased; ppl who are well tend to remember the good times; ppl who are unwell tend to remember the bad times. so it may not be that intimacy leads to emotional well-being as the author concludes, but rather that emotional well-being makes memories of intimacy stand out.

-Patrick
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