#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.