Q11 - Psychologists observing a shopping mall

[hamham]

Hi. Could anyone help with the previous post? Thank you.

[erikwoodward10]

I have a problem with answer choice A and another defense for C as the correct answer.

It is my understanding that the stimulus presents a cause/effect relationship. One way to weaken this type of relationship is to present another cause for the stated effect.

Answer choice A appears to be correct at a first glance, as it appears to do exactly this. It posits that the more pressure a driver feels because others are waiting, the less quickly they are able to pull out. Upon an initial reading, this sounds like it is proposing another cause for the effect. However, it requires the assumption that drivers who are pulling out of a space feel more pressured when they are being honked at. I don't understand why we are allowed to make this assumption--without this assumption, we only have a partial explanation, as we still can't explain the difference in time when a car is simply waiting vs. honking.

This is frustrating because the above posts mention that we can eliminate C for exactly this reason (because it doesn't explain the only waiting vs. honking discrepancy).

Help? Or is this simply an example of a "reasonable assumption" that we're allowed to make on the LSAT--that we'd all feel pressured if someone was honking (I know I would!).

[Laura Damone]

Full Explanation
What does the stem tell us: Weakener

Breakdown the stimulus: First, we get a 3-fold phenomenon. Then, it concludes an explanation of the phenomenon.

Any prephrase? Weaken by alternative explanation.

A) correct! Alternative explanation that covers all 3 aspects of the phenomenon.

B) out of scope. We’re talking about leaving, not entering.

C) tempting. Alternative explanation for 2 aspects of the phenomenon: why we leave faster when nobody’s waiting than when somebody’s waiting. But it doesn’t explain the third aspect: why we’re faster when somebody’s waiting patiently than when somebody’s waiting and honking. Therefore, it’s incorrect.

D) tempting, but even if these spaces are more or less likely to exemplify this phenomenon, what happens in them can still shed light on this phenomenon generally.

E) like C, this is an incomplete alternative explanation. This one only address the honkers, but fails to explain why someone waiting patiently would cause the person leaving of the spot to take more time than if there was no one waiting.

Takeaway/Pattern: Explanations of phenomenon are common in Strengthen and Weaken questions. Weaken by providing an alternative explanation. Strengthen by ruling one out!

[mirinaucla]

The main reason why I chose A over C is because C says "if another car waiting to enter that space is nearby." I thought this suggests that the waiting car is so close that it is difficult for the car leaving the parking space to come out, thus this is out of scope. Is this correct or am I overthinking?

[ohthatpatrick]

Sorry for the holiday-delayed response!

I think (C) is in scope for the reason you said. If someone is waiting nearby, it might be harder to back out, and thus it might take longer to do so.

Since we're trying to figure out why people sometimes take longer to leave a space, any information we get that relates to taking longer to leave a space is relevant to the conversation.

I'm worried you're going to be blinded by certain types of correct answers, if you think this one is out of scope.

One of the most common archetypes for an argument is Causal Explanation.

If we argued:
Jane is crying. Thus, she must be cutting onions.

That conclusion was a Causal Explanation for some curious fact in the evidence. We can weaken this argument with alternative explanations for why she's crying:
- her dog died
- she got fired
- the Cowboys got mathematically eliminated from playoff contention

All of those things would potentially sound "out of scope", but they're all relevant to the argument, because if we found out her dog died today, that would make us think, "Hmmmm. THAT'S probably the reason for her crying. Forget about this whole 'cutting onions' hypothesis."

Since we're trying to weaken this parking space argument, where the author offers a Causal Explanation that "the reason we took longer when someone was waiting, and even longer when they were impatiently waiting, is that we feel possessive of our spots and don't want to give them up" ... it is totally fair game to weaken the argument by saying ..

THAT'S not why we take longer ... THIS is why we take longer.

We could have objected, "We don't take longer because we're possessive of the spot. We take longer because the car that's waiting is making harder to back out!"

(C) could be a correct answer if we didn't have a better answer available in (A), which is a superior type of alternate explanation because it explains why patient waiting takes longer than no waiting AND why impatient waiting takes longer than patient waiting.

Hope this helps.

[mirinaucla]

Thank you!

[WesleyC316]

This is a tough one. I chose the wrong answer (C) but now I realize why (A) is correct.

I think the main difficulty of this question is that there are three phenomenons in the stimulus and you have to account for all of them. That's precisely why (A) is correct, because it says "The more pressure..., the less quickly....", and that perfectly explains each of the three. No one waiting is pressure level 1, another car waiting is pressure level 2, and honking while waiting is pressure level 3, and the leaving time increases gradually.

In comparison, if (C) is applied as an explanation, it doesn't actually differentiate phenomenon 2 from 3: they are the same accordingly, because they both apply to the "if another car waiting to enter that space is nearby" part equally. And I don't think the word "nearby" is a good reason to eliminate that because it's a legitimate assumption to make in my opinion.

Also for other answer choices if helpful:
(B): out of scope, I don't see a reason to care about the amount of time drivers spend "entering" a parking space.
(D): the likelihood is not at issue here. The argument only concerns occasions when there actually ARE other drivers waiting. Rather, I think it would be a good answer if it left out the "with respect to..." part and simply said shopping mall parking lots are unrepresentative. It could also be a good one if it said something like "unrepresentative with respect to the psychological status of drivers on most other occasions."
(E): two errors. The first is that it only says influence, how do we know if it's a positive or a negative one? The anger could be a motivation to the driver rather than a distraction. Secondly, even if it does say negatively influence, it doesn't explain phenomenon 2 when the other driver isn't honking.