Q7 - In one study, hospital patients' immune systems

[mshinners]

Question Type:
ID the Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
A hospital played funny movies for patients and they got better faster. Some of the people were predisposed to laughing even more, and they got better even faster! So laughter helps you get better, but being predisposed to laughing helps more than that.

Answer Anticipation:
The conclusion is comparative, so I'll start my analysis there. What's being compared? Laughing vs. a tendency to laugh. Wait, wouldn't people with a tendency to laugh, laugh more? If that's the case, then it seems as if the laughter is what's helping recovery, even for the people with the tendency. The answer will probably reflect this.

Correct answer:
(A)

Answer choice analysis:
(A) Boom, right off the bat. The laughter itself increased recovery, so the comparative conclusion is off base.

(B) Relative vs. absolute. The premises establish that immune systems grew stronger, which is relative. Because of that, information about where they started isn't relevant to the comparison.

(C) Wrong flaw (Sampling). Since the conclusion is about hospital patients, and the study was done on hospital patients, they don't need to be representative of the overall population. This answer would be correct if the conclusion stated, "So individuals with..."

(D) Tempting! This answer choice is getting at a Reversed Causation flaw. However, since this isn't a Correlation/Causation flaw (the premise is causal, and the conclusion is about the comparison), this answer choice is out.

(E) Premise booster/degree. The argument does establish a general trend between tendency to laugh and recovery, but the general trend doesn't need there to be a direct relationship between the greatest tendency and the quickest recovery (especially since the connection is to immune system strength).

Takeaway/Pattern:
When an argument brings up causality in the premises, be wary of Correlation/Causation trap answers. Additionally, comparative conclusions generally have some issue with how the comparison is drawn.

#officialexplanation

[armangsagart]

But it says in the conclusion "even when they laugh a little". So I immediately crossed out A because of that.

[ohthatpatrick]

The frequency terms in the conclusion come from out of nowhere, and thus are just a weird new distinction the author adds on there.

In the author's interpretation of this evidence, he apparently came away with the idea that the laugh-prone people laughed less than the laugh-reluctant people.

It makes me mad at LSAT that they would throw this random asymmetry into the conclusion when it appears nowhere in the evidence.

But (A), if true, would help fight against the author making a move to that asymmetric conclusion by saying, "Dude --- the laugh-prone patients just laughed more. Thus, maybe the LAUGHING was the cause of their greater improvement, not the prior state of being laugh-prone."

[LolaC289]

mshinners and ohthatpatrick just NAIDED it. I have no new things to add but some random thoughts...

I thought it was a weird argument when doing it but didn't know where that feeling came from...until ohthatpatrick points out that it's the TENDENCY that popped out of nowhere and suddenly made the HERO to the improvement.

The gist of this argument will be hard to comprehend if you ignored the latter part of the conclusion, "So patients with a greater tendency to laugh are helped more, ......, even when they laugh a little than other patients are helped when they laugh a greater amount." It is not just stating a cause. It is making a COMPARATIVE STATEMENT. The author is concluding, from the study, that LAUGHTER, though helps, does not help as much as the TENDENCY TO LAUGH does.

If you have realized this point, then this question should be no big problem at all. Because the study merely established that "much greater gains occurred in the patients whose tendency to laugh was greater to begin with", this is comparison, yes, but the comparison to the people whose tendency to laugh was weaker, not to those who laughed a lot. The author made a false comparison based on that.

How do we argue? Well, we only argue to his opposite, that LAUGHTER is what contributes the most. In introducing those who have greater tendency to laugh are also those who have laughed more, we point out that it can't be concluded while these two factor co-exists in the face of certain result (more gain), that it is either one that have helped more.

Hope this helps.

[TheodoreJones98423789]

this question confused the hell out of me

[RTM94]

Sorry, I feel like I'm being dumb but I'm still not grasping this based on the responses given. My hang-up, as mentioned by some of you, is this frequency piece.

The reason why this threw me off is not only because it came out of nowhere, but because this information is (seemingly) stated as fact. It sounds like I'm supposed to accept as true that even those with higher tendency to laugh but only laughed a little, had better immune systems than those without a high tendency to laugh and laughed more. So how can we say that A is right--which is saying maybe the patients with a tendency to laugh actually laughed more....when the conclusion is explicitly telling us the group of people whos immune systems improved also includes people who laughed a little? This seems contradictory and so confusing to me. I hope that made sense..

[mswang7]

Is B in correct because it was indeed addressed? (Greater gains in immune system occurred in patients whose tendency to laugh was greater to begin with)?