#4 - Overcrowding inclines human beings toward aggressive, competitive behavior

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Strengthen, Except. The correct answer choice is (C).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[domthedestroyer]

How does A strengthen?
First of all, the stimulus mentions a higher frequency and severity in relation to war and crimes whereas this answer choice mentions a higher frequency and severity in relation to overcrowding - two different things.

Secondly, according to this choice, if overcrowding is PROPORTIONAL, we know that if the population increases, then overcrowding on absolute terms will increase, but in proportion to the total population it would stay the same. If overcrowding is proportional, would that not apply to aggressive and competitive behavior? Here's a hypothetical example:

Say I live in a world with 9 other people. Half of us are overcrowded (5 people) and of the overcrowded people, 20% of the individuals show aggressive and competitive behavior. That means if I'm one of the 5 who are in the overcrowded area, I would encounter one person being aggressive. Now say the population increases by TWICE as much to 20 people. If overcrowding is proportional, then now it would be 10 people in the overcrowded area (10 is half of 20). As a result, I would see an increase in aggressive behavior. 20% of 10 is 2, so now 2 people would be aggressive. While more people are aggressive, it's still PROPORTIONAL to population growth meaning there was NO increase in frequency.

The conclusion says that aggressive behavior will be more FREQUENT, but that's different from simply OCCURRING more. If I see more people acting aggressive (2 as opposed to 1) that doesn't mean aggression has become more frequent, it's just that there's more people involved(20 instead of 10).

An expert please help me out!

[Jeff Wren]

Hi dom,

The first step in solving this question is correctly identifying the conclusion and noticing any new information and/or shifts in terms from the premises.

The conclusion is the last sentence of the stimulus. It introduces the idea of world population increasing and links this to an increase in aggressive behavior in an implied causal relationship. While aggressive behavior was discussed in the premises, growth in world population was not discussed in the premises. The concept of overcrowding is discussed in the premises and linked to aggressive behavior, but overcrowding is not synonymous with an increase in world population. For example, it could be possible to increase the world population will also decreasing overcrowding if large numbers of people spread out from crowded urban areas into rural areas.

The argument's reasoning (simplified) is:

Premise: Overcrowding (causes) an increase in aggressive behavior.
Conclusion: The continued growth of the world population will (cause) an increase in the frequency and severity of aggressive behavior.

What Answer A does is link the world population to overcrowding in a directly proportional way. In other words, it's stating that as world population increases, the instances and severity of overcrowding increases. While this may seem obvious (as it may seem reasonable to assume that the more people there are, the more overcrowding would occur), this connection needs to be established to bridge the logical gap in the argument.

Let's discuss your statement:

The conclusion says that aggressive behavior will be more FREQUENT, but that's different from simply OCCURRING more. If I see more people acting aggressive (2 as opposed to 1) that doesn't mean aggression has become more frequent, it's just that there's more people involved(20 instead of 10).

It looks like you may be confusing the concept of "frequency" with the concepts of likelihood or ratios.

Here is a definition of "frequency" that would be most relevant to this argument: "the number of times something happens within a particular period, or the fact of something happening often or a large number or times." As this definition indicates, "frequency" does refer to the actual number of times something occurs rather than the proportion or likelihood.

Also note that the severity of the overcrowding also is proportional to the size of the world population (according to Answer A) and, since overcrowding causes aggressive behavior (according to the premise), more severe overcrowding would likely lead to more instances of aggressive behavior and an increase in more severe aggressive behavior as the conclusion states.

One final note regarding your first comment.

First of all, the stimulus mentions a higher frequency and severity in relation to war and crimes whereas this answer choice mentions a higher frequency and severity in relation to overcrowding - two different things.

The conclusion of the argument mentions war and crime as examples of where this type of aggressive behavior will occur, but these details aren't really critical to the logic of the causal argument as described above. What Answer A does is link world population (the new information in the conclusion) to overcrowding, the unconnected term in the premise, to close the logical gap in the argument.

[charliebrown33]

Answer A effectively bridges the gap by directly linking world population growth to overcrowding, supporting the argument's causal chain between increased population, overcrowding, and aggressive behavior.