#9 - Reducing stress lessens a person’s sensitivity to pain.

[jonwg5121]

Can you please explain how to approach #9? I chose (C) in the end but thought (A) was a convincing answer. If the music were different genres/moods (ex. angry or happy music), wouldn't it muddle the experiment? Thanks.

[Steve Stein]

Hi Jon,

That's an interesting question. Based on the fact that patients who listened to music before and after surgery required less anesthesia and painkillers, the researchers concluded that reduction of stress can reduce pain sensitivity.

The Supporter Assumption is provided by correct answer choice (C), as you said. The researchers drew a conclusion about stress reduction based on responses to music, so they must be operating under the assumption that listening to music reduces stress.

Answer choice (A) is not an Assumption that is required by the argument; even if there were some participants who listened to different tapes, the comparison provided is between those who listened to music before and after, and those who listened to conversation before and after surgery.

Good question--please let me know whether this is clear--thanks!

~Steve

[jcough346]

Why is D wrong? Im guessing that "psychological effects" is too broad in scope and doesn't connect back to "stress" in the stimulus.
And when I did the question a second time I picked E, thinking that its negation attacks their assumption that anesthesia and painkillers quell surgery related stress.

[Jonathan Evans]

JCough,

Let's talk about the structure of this argument. It seems as though you might be getting side-tracked with some ancillary stuff that doesn't have a lot of bearing on the validity of this argument.

First, identify the conclusion: Reducing stress lessens pain.

Now ask why or how we know that reducing stress lessens pain. Well the evidence we have is as follows: Some people were in surgery. Some of them listened to conversations. Others listened to music. The ones who listened to music needed less pain medication.

It is important that you identify the gap or flaw in this argument by finding the ideas that don't sync up. For instance, it is safe to assume that painkillers reduce pain. In other words, this is not an assumption likely to be tested by an LSAT argument. So find the aspect of the conclusion and the aspect of the premises that don't seem to jibe. Here you might notice that the premises indicate that music lessens pain while the conclusion claims that less stress reduces pain. Thus the parts of the argument that don't go together are the things that the author connects with less pain:

Music and Less Stress

You need an answer choice with these concepts. Among the answer choices, only (C) does the job here.

Answer choice (E) is one of those mix-and-match answers that just plays mad libs with the stimulus, mixing and matching parts in a nonsensical fashion.

Consider (D). Negation test. What if the psychological effects of music were changed by anesthesia or painkillers? So what? Is it still possible that reducing stress still lessens sensitivity to pain? Sure, why not. Doesn't pass the test.

[fortunateking]

I think this question is a good example of when most supporter-assumption may serve as justify-assumption, they don't have to. As in this question,
Premise: more music→less pain
Conclusion: less stress→less pain
It seems that the correct answer (C), music→less pain, doesn't bridge the gap. As it could be that music itself leads to both less pain & less stress (which means that stress & pain are independent, unrelated issues, no causality in between).
However, just because if we negate (C), the conception of stress would come from nowhere, which makes (C) the right pick.
Any thoughts would be appreciated!

[Paul Popa]

Hey King,

(C) does mention stress. Going off of your statements:

music less pain
less stress less pain

(C) bridges the gap in this argument by saying that music less stress, and it is this gap that needs to be filled in this necessary assumption question. How can we conclude that less stress reduces pain sensitivity from the patients who listened to music without it? Hope this helps!