#11 - Psychologists have found that candidates for top

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below!

[ahhe223]

The author references confidence as an attribute that should be sought after in political candidates. He does this to contrast with blinking to show that blinking has no merit in the selection process. However, if blinking contribute or corresponds with confidence levels, then blinking might be a worthy attribute for consideration.

[Jonathan Evans]

Yes, this is basically it. Blinking in and of itself does not correspond to an ability to perform well in office, but if blinking were correlated with a feature that the author indicates is beneficial, then it is less likely that "any impact this phenomenon has on election results is surely deleterious."

Well done!

[jayzbrisk]

I need a little help with this question.

To me this is the structure of the paragraph:

Premise: candidates who blink more during debates are judged to have done less well than their competition.

Conclusion: This wont affect election results because blinking isn't a feature that will affect performance in office.

To me this was a flawed argument because the premise said that the blinking makes people think the candidate didn't perform well on the debate......therefore, its not that we are worried about a candidate who blinks to much but rather the voters don't like someone who doesn't perform as well on a debate (otherwise whats the purpose of debates.....just a side point). unless.... you assume that people will end up judging the debate by other factors just as how knowledgeable the candidate appears.....that's why I chose answer choice E because it takes away that notion.

Can someone please explain this further??

Thank you.

[Malila Robinson]

Hi jayzbrisk,
This is a Weaken question and the argument is that
1. Psychologists claim that excessive blinking during presidential debates causes viewers to feel some amount of negativity about that candidate's performance. No reason for the psychologists claim is presented.
2. The speaker assumes that the reason for the psychologists claim is simply related to something like viewers not liking blinking, and the speaker says that this is harmful to the election process since blinking has nothing to do with how well someone will do in office. The speaker notes that things like knowledge and confidence do contribute to how well someone does in office.

To pre-phrase you would want to say that the problem isn't simply that viewers don't like folks who blink, but rather that blinking tends to be linked to a trait that is relevant to holding office. That leads directly to answer C.

Answer E is irrelevant because the focus of the argument is on how well the folks would do once in office, not how well they performed on the debate. So even if knowledge is something that doesn't affect a debate, it still doesn't mean that a lack of knowledge will not negatively affect how well the person would do in office. As such it does not weaken the argument.
Hope that helps,
-Malila

[sparrrkk_]

Hi,

I understand why C is the right answer. However, I want to make sure my reasoning for why A is wrong is valid.

A is incorrect because it says it "rarely affects" which open the possibility that sometimes it does affect. In these instances, the impact could be deleterious, as the stimulus states. Also, it says "national elections" while the stimulus says "election results" generally. Thus, even if it has little to no impact for "national elections", it could still have a bad effect on regional elections, etc.

[Jeremy Press]

Hi sparrrkk,

Yes, I generally agree with your reasoning about answer choice A. I wouldn't change a word, but I would point out another reason answer choice A doesn't have an impact is that the wording of the conclusion is hypothetical. To say that "any" impact blinking has is deleterious is not to assume that blinking does in fact have an impact. So saying it's unlikely to have an impact doesn't really weaken a conclusion that hasn't assumed such impact.

I hope this helps!

Jeremy

[LSAT student]

Hello,

I do not understand the correct answer at all. To me, this portion of the stimulus: "Psychologists have found that candidates for top political offices who blink excessively during televised debates are judged by viewers to have done less well than competing candidates who exhibit average blink rates. Any impact this phenomenon has on election results is surely deleterious..." sounds like the author is complaining that viewers have a less favorable opinion of those with excessive blink rates (and thus a more favorable opinion of those with average blink rates).

Answer (C) sounds like it would actually strengthen that viewpoint rather than weaken it. Choice (A) seemed like it weakened the argument to me. I have read through all the explanations and still don't understand!

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Howdy Student,

The basic idea of this stimulus is that it's problematic for people to make voting decision based on higher than average blink rates, because blink rates aren't an indicator of how someone will perform in office. We want to weaken that, and the idea that jumps out to me as a prephrase is that what if somehow blink rate was related performance. The reason that using blink rate is deleterious is because the author assumes that blink rate doesn't determine how someone will perform. We want to weaken that and exploit the assumption.

Answer choice (C) gives us the answer we are looking for--a reason that blinking might show that someone is a bad candidate. Answer choice (A) doesn't weaken the argument because we don't need to know how often the viewers' judgement comes into play. It says ANY effect it has is deleterious. Even if it's rare, it would still be deleterious.

Hope that helps.
Rachael

[menkenj]

Hi sparrrkk,

Yes, I generally agree with your reasoning about answer choice A. I wouldn't change a word, but I would point out another reason answer choice A doesn't have an impact is that the wording of the conclusion is hypothetical. To say that "any" impact blinking has is deleterious is not to assume that blinking does in fact have an impact. So saying it's unlikely to have an impact doesn't really weaken a conclusion that hasn't assumed such impact.

I hope this helps!

Jeremy

Can you explain your second to last sentence a bit more please? I have read it 3 times and I'm not sure I understand.