#22- Psychologist: It is well known that becoming angry

[Robert Carroll]

desi,

Just be more aware of two ideas - subsumption under an "umbrella" term and synonymy.

Imagine I wanted to strengthen this argument. If I had an answer that said "Feeling depressed can lead to increased risk of heart disease," I'd examine whether "feeling depressed" falls under the umbrella term "psychological factors" or whether "feeling depressed" is synonymous with "being easily angered".

Here, we have "frustrated by small difficulties" and falling under the umbrella "psychological factors" doesn't seem good enough, so the only question is whether it is the same as "easily being angered." Those aren't the same, so it's irrelevant.

Robert Carroll

[desiboy96]

Awesome! Thanks for the advice Robert

[lsater180]

Hello team,

I have a quick question regarding the role of the first sentence of the stimulus - "it is well known that ~"
What would you say is the purpose of this statement?

I noticed that the first sentence says anger induces "temporary" HBP while the second sentence correlated anger to "permanent" HBP, hence a change in research findings. Is it safe to regard the first sentence as a throw-away statement (kind of) that isn't part of the author's argument but more as a build-up to the author's actual argument? If this were an argument role question, it'd be something like the first sentence is a widely-known generalization that the author attempts to refute.

I'm trying to break down stimulus as much as I can so it'd be really helpful to get a response on this! Thank you so much in advance

[Luke Haqq]

Hi lsater180!

It seems accurate to describe the first sentence as a something that the author introduces as a "widely-known generalization." I'm not sure that the author fully attempts to refute it, though. That first sentence seems to be saying that the cause is a psychological factor (anger), and the effect is high blood pressure. The author eventually concludes that psychological factors can cause heart disease (because permanently high blood pressure can cause heart disease). It'd be a sentence that the author attempts to refute if the author had challenged the cause and effect relationship by, for example, showing that it was reversed or there was an alternative cause.

[ronak1905]

Experts, I have a query. I understand that its a simple correlation to causation argument. The conclusion "the recent findings indicate that heart disease can result from psychological factors" is a very mild one however, in that even if i able to prove one instance of anger =can> permanent High BP => Heart disease, the psychologist is still good to go. My problem with option E "The physiological factors that cause permanently high blood pressure generally make people quick to anger" is that it states an alternative cause to permanent high BP and thereby heart diseases. While it may be that, in these instances, anger is just a byproduct of physiological factors, It may still hold that heart diseases Can be for psychological reasons. Hence, i felt this doesn't really have a -ve enough bearing on the argument.

While D has its own flaws in replacing anger with frustration, this option at least points out to the scope of reverse logic.

Kindly help,
Thanks in advance

[Amber Thomas]

Hi ronak1905!

You're right that our stimulus sets up a relatively weak causal relationship (i.e. using "may" as opposed to something more definitive) between Easily Angered --> Permanently High Blood Pressure --> Heart Disease. Answer Choice E works because it states that Permanently High Blood Pressure --> Easily Angered, reversing the proposed cause/effect relationship shown in the stimulus.

Remember, with weaken questions, we don't need to outright disprove what's proposed/concluded in the stimulus, we just need to cast doubt upon it. It still may be true that heart disease could be caused by psychological factors, however, we have weakened the argument offered by the stimulus in support of that conclusion.

I hope this helps!