#14 - Psychologist: We asked 100 entrepreneurs and 100

[Luke Haqq]

Hi Sdaoud17,

A problem with answer (c) is that, though the new survey shows correlation, the answer choice does not indicate what sort of correlation it is--e.g., inversely or directly correlated.

Since the argument in the stimulus is that entrepreneurs tend to be overconfident, answer (d) strengthens this correlation because it gives another example where overconfidence is linked with entrepreneurs and makes a claim about direct correlation. In other words, it strengthens the conclusion.

Regardless of whether they continue to do so now--which would strengthen the conclusion even more--the fact that they did so in the past does at least something to strengthen the correlation, which is enough to make (d) the best answer.

Hope that helps!

[pasu1223]

Hello all,

Just wanted to clarify my thinking on this question. I initially narrowed the answers down to B and D as well.

Let me know if this makes sense.

B) SOME of the odds are known to be AGAINST their attempts being successful. As a second family question the "enormous odds against success" doesn't factor into the answer choice, but rather that the answer choice is assumed to be true.

Therefore, the odds could be 1-100% against them. If they are 11% against them this doesn't seem like it really accounts for being "especially overconfident" if it could be more likely that they win or not. However, if the odds were 100% then this I think would seriously strengthen the argument. I think the "against enormous" odds really makes the reader think the odds are worse when the answer choice actually doesn't say that.

It reminds me of PT 55 Section 3 Question 4. I think the correct answer choice is illogical because given the circumstances of the stimulus the whole problem is a solution cannot be reached and the answer assumes the solution is reached which solves the problem.... it is a weaken question though so the truth of the answer choice is not in doubt although it could possibly "contradict" the circumstances of the stimulus.

However, comparing B to D there isn't really a possible downside to D as there is with B.

The argument precedes off of the basis of correlation rather than causality so further correlation in another case can do nothing but help the psychologists' conclusion..... Furthermore, the "at least some" further weakens answer choice B to D.

Does that make sense or am I just grasping at straws here?

Thanks for any help!

Patrick

[AthenaDalton]

Hi Patrick,

You make some good points. For example, you're right to hone in on the fact that answer choice (B)'s statement that "at least some" of the entrepreneurs surveyed knew of the risks is a pretty weak statement, since we're making generalizations based on what a group of 100 did.

I think that what (B) is getting at is that all 100 entrepreneurs faced really bad odds of succeeding in their businesses. But only some of them ever bothered to get an accurate estimate of what those odds were. So all 100 were facing bad odds, but perhaps only 5 of them actually knew how bad the odds were. If only 5 knew it was a long shot, we still can't be very confident in saying that all 100 are overconfident risk-takers.

As far as your theory about a hypothetical 11 percent failure rate -- you may be overanalyzing the stimulus a bit. We're told in the stimulus that there are "enormous odds against success" for people who start a new business. We don't need to quantify that into a none / some / most / all category. We can just interpret "enormous odds against success" to mean that the chances of succeeding are really, really poor. I can't put a number on this, but I would say that enormous odds of failing would be at least a 51 percent chance of failing, but likely much, much higher, in the range of an 80 or 90 percent failure rate.

Your reasoning for favoring (D) is on point. Keep up the good work, and good luck studying!

Athena Dalton

[lina2020]

Hi PowerScore,

I had trouble finding an answer choice that I liked on this question but ended up choosing A based on my pre-phrase. Here was my thought process:

I first identified the conclusion, "This indicates that people who are especially overconfident are more likely to attempt to start a business in spite of the enormous odds against success than people who are less confident."

My initial thought was perhaps the survey questions were biased and so the questions were more geared towards the entrepreneurs, which would explain why they were more confident that their responses were correct. Answer Choice A was not exactly what I was looking for but I chose it because it sets an even playing field for the survey questions being asked.

I eliminated D because I thought it presented an alternative cause, and therefore, weakened the argument. Perhaps the reason the entrepreneurs were more overconfident is because they had previously started a business, and that instead, was the cause. Please advise.

[Adam Tyson]

Good thinking looking for eliminating problems in the survey such as bias, lina2020! That is one way to strengthen a claim based on a survey. Unfortunately, answer A really doesn't do that, because while the questions were on a broad range of topics they could still all be biased. Nothing about the answer should make us feel any better about the construction of the questions, so any help it gives us is minor at best.

You may have misread answer D, though, because it's not giving an alternate cause for the entrepreneurs feeling overconfident. It's not about the entrepreneurs at all, but about the business managers, and showing that within that group there is more overconfidence among the ones who had previously been entrepreneurs themselves. This strengthens the correlation between higher levels of overconfidence and starting one's own business!

[sdb606]

Answer choice (E): At first glance, this seems like an attractive answer because it suggests that
someone’s confidence in answering the survey questions would be a suitable proxy for her
confidence in general. However, there is a difference in scope between being confident in one’s
business acumen and being overconfident in general. Since our job is to strengthen the correlation
between general overconfidence and entrepreneurship, this answer choice falls short of lending the
most support to the psychologist’s conclusion.

I think this explanation is incorrect. E is not discussing confidence in general. It is discussing confidence in responding to questions on a survey. The admin is making a leap by saying that E says that if someone is confident in answering questions, he must be confident in general. If I confidently answer all 100 LSAT questions, that does not mean I am a confident person in general.

I think E is wrong because it requires an additional assumption that someone who believes in his/her own business acumen is more likely to start a business. But an overconfident business manager who believes strongly in his own business acumen isn't necessarily likely to start a new business. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe good business acumen makes the manager more likely to start a new product line vs. a whole new company. A stronger indicator of the likelihood of someone starting a company is if they did it in the past, as in D. Not airtight because past behavior does not guarantee future behavior but it's a stronger indicator than business acumen.

[sdb606]

Actually, I take it back. I see the generalization of overconfidence in surveys to overconfidence in general in the conclusion. I think the rest of my explanation still explains why a correlation of confidence to business acumen is a weaker link to starting a business than a link between confidence and a history of starting businesses.

[crispycrispr]

I'm so lost on this question. How does (D) strengthen at all??? Aren't we trying to say that entrepreneurs are more likely to attempt to start businesses than business managers??? If business managers didn't attempt to start businesses, doesn't that strengthen, and the opposite would weaken? Because then the likelihood of business managers attempting to start business would be zero!? I thought the problem wrong with this stimulus is that it's overgeneralizing because the experiment only had results of confidence about whether or not they were right, but not confidence in general.

[ashpine17]

Is this a causal argument?

[evelineliu]

Hi everyone,

In this question, the psychologist's conclusion is that very overconfident people are more likely to start a business. As you said, Ash, It can be restated as a causal argument: being very overconfident causes people to start businesses. The evidence in the stimulus, however, is merely correlation, where people who started businesses (entrepreneurs) are more confident. Therefore, the psychologist is assuming three things: (1) the causality is not reversed (starting a business increased confidence), (2) an outside force didn't cause both the confidence and the entrepreneurship, and (3) entrepreneurship and confidence aren't coincidentally correlated. The correct answer will strengthen the causal link between overconfidence and starting a business.

(D) reinforces the connection by adding the fact that. the MOST overconfidence business managers also tried to start businesses at one time.

Hope that helps,
Eveline