Q17 - Economist: Some critics of the media have contended th

[samantha.rose.shulman]

PT65, S1, Q17 (Identify A Flaw)

The correct answer is (D).

This is an Identify a Flaw question, and as with any Assumption Family question, we need to find the argument core. The conclusion isn’t too difficult to find, since it appears at the end of the stimulus and includes "thus" to guide us there: thus these media critics are mistaken.

Now to consider the premise(s): how are the critics mistaken? In this case the critics are mistaken in their view that negative news reports on the state of the economy can actually harm the economy because such reports damage people’s confidence in it. The stimulus goes on to explain the critics reasoning for this view _ there is the following chain reaction:

Negative News On Economy -> Lower Confidence In Economy -> Less Willing To Spend Money -> Harms Economy

Or, the condensed version: Negative News On Economy -> Harms Economy

So why does the author conclude that this view incorrect? The only supporting premise is "studies show that spending trends correlate very closely with people’s confidence in their own immediate economic situations". Notice that there is a shift here. At first, we were talking about confidence in the economy generally, and now we are talking about confidence in people’s own economic situation. The complete argument core is:

Spending Correlated With Confidence In Own Immediate Economic Situations -> Critics Are Mistaken (Negative News About Economy Does NOT Harm Economy)

It is now time to evaluate the connection between the premise and the conclusion reached. This argument is trying to break the chain in the critics’ logic. Without this chain, the support for the critics’ conclusion would be destroyed. Specifically, this argument is attempting to destroy the following bold link:

Negative News On Economy -> Lower Confidence In Economy -> Less Willing To Spend Money -> Harms Economy

It doesn’t do a very good job though! The only supporting premise, as started earlier, is that people’s spending is correlated with their confidence in their own immediate economic situations. But is people’s confidence in their own immediate economic situations completely separate from their confidence in the economy? It doesn’t seem outlandish to assume that they would actually be closely related!

So, one assumption this argument makes is that having lower confidence in the economy does not in turn lower people’s confidence in their own immediate economic situations or vice versa. Now we have to be prepared to turn this assumption into a flaw. The question stem does some of the work for us, stating "fails to consider the possibility that".

The correct answer may be the flaw we have identified, or it may be something we haven't considered. It is important to keep an open mind before looking at the answer choices.

(A) is incorrect. Although the form and content of this answer choice are attractive, it relates the wrong links of the critics’ logic chain. Who cares if it is our own situation that determines how we perceive the reports? Do reports perceived as negative affect the economy or not?

(B) is incorrect. It doesn’t matter whether or not the news reports themselves are accurate. What matters is whether or not the news reports affect people’s confidence in a way that in turn negatively affect the economy.

(C) is incorrect. Who cares about people who pay no attention to economic reports? How many of these people are there? Why does it matter whether or not they can predict whether their own economic situation is likely to deteriorate or improve? Does this affect their spending? This has nothing to do with whether or not in general negative news on the economy can harm the economy, and brings up too many unanswered questions.

(E) is incorrect. This answer choice seems like it is trying to support having negative economic reports (which isn’t our task in the first place), but it misses the mark. It isn’t about reducing the impact on the economic situations of individuals, but reducing the impact on the general economy. Even if you fixed this answer choice to read "an economic slowdown usually has a greater impact on the economy if it takes people by surprise than if people are forewarned" it wouldn’t be correct. First, it is too general in terms of the type of impact (could be positive or negative). Second, we are not concerned with whether or not we should have negative reports, but instead concerned with whether or not these negative reports harm the economy.

(D) This answer choice points out that the support the argument uses to reach its conclusion can actually support the critics’ conclusion!

This answer choice takes the "lower confidence in their own economic situations -> less willing to spend money" and makes it part of the critics original logic chain:

Negative News On Economy -> Lower Confidence In Economy -> Lower Confidence In Their Own Economic Situations -> Less Willing To Spend Money -> Harms Economy

Again, the condensed version remains: Negative News On Economy -> Harms Economy

This shows that although it may be true that spending is closely correlated with people’s confidence in their immediate situations, this itself doesn’t automatically mean that negative news on the economy doesn’t lower people’s confidence in the economy. Both can be true!

[jsdulberg]

Thank you for the complete explanation.

Quick question: could (A) be correct if it stated "reports about the overall state of the economy affects one's level of confidence in one's own economic situation"?

Would this connect the shift from negative news reports --> damage confidence?

Thanks.

[logicfiend]

Thank you for the complete explanation.

Quick question: could (A) be correct if it stated "reports about the overall state of the economy affects one's level of confidence in one's own economic situation"?

Would this connect the shift from negative news reports --> damage confidence?

Thanks.

I'm not sure this would be correct because it's vague. HOW does your perception of the economy affect your perception of your own economic situation? The way your hypothetical AC is written, it's possible you negatively perceive the economy, but it makes you see your own economic situation positively. If that is true, then you're willing to spend more and it will not hurt the economy. This AC does not show the flaw in the stimulus in showing how the critics could actually be right, as it is depicted in (D).

We need: negative perception of overall economy --> negatively affects perception of economic situation--> decreases spending --> harms economy.

(D) gives us the missing element: negative perception of overall economy --> negatively affects perception of economic situation

You would not be guaranteed to get this chain with: "Reports about the overall state of the economy affects one's level of confidence in one's own economic situation." We need the negative to negative chain. Hope that clears anything up.

[shirleyx]

I'm going to try a very simplified version of the stimulus, and it got me to the right answer...

The economists' reasoning is as follows:
[negative reports on the state of the economy can NOT actually harm the economy]
because...
-studies show that spending correlates very closely with people's confidence in their own economic situation

Flaw: how did the economist get from "spending correlating with confidence" to negative reports not harming the economy?? the economist took for granted having this correlation is sufficient enough to say the conclusion.

going to the answer choices

(A) this isn't addressing a flaw- it may even strengthen the argument because it is linking the P with the C
(B) so irrelevant to the argument- who cares about the news' reports accuracy - at least in our argument
(C) this is not a problem, we do not care about those 'who pay no attention to economic reports in media'
(D) can't find anything wrong, leave for now
(E) 'suprise', 'forewarned' - these are not part of the argument

as it looks, (D) is the only one left. conforming (D)

(D) is correct because in the argument, the economist simply ignores what the critics have to say. And this answer choice brings to light some of the things the critics say, namely that "these reports can damage people's confidence in spending their money'.

[erikwoodward10]

Looking for broader patterns, I think it's worth looking at the logical structure of this question. We're given a lot of causation, and then told that this causation is false because something else is correlated. This should be a huge hint that the correct answer is somehow going to play off the relationship between causation and correlation.

Now, consider the conclusion and the question stem. The conclusion says "nope, there's no causation"; the stem tells us to identify a flaw that the author committed in reaching this conclusion... It shouldn't be surprising that the correct answer says "oh wait, your correlation actually is a part of the causal relationship!".

Taking a RC approach (reading for argumentative structure) can be really helpful to flaw questions. If you have an idea of the logical structure of the answer choice you're looking for, it's a lot easier to avoid tricky answer choices filled with LSAT jargon (and keeping things straight logically in your head helps you avoid answers like A, which, although brings us back to the idea of causation, links up elements in the reverse order).

[seychelles1718]

Can one of the instructors please help me with my logic? I'd really appreciate the help

The flaw I noticed is that the author fails to realize that people's confidence in their own economic circumstances might be related to people's confidence in the state's economy. I pre-phrased, "what if people's confidence in their own economic circumstances affect people's confidence in the state's economy?" So I immediately liked and thus picked A. I eliminated D even though it was pretty close to my pre-phrase because it sounded too specific ("little confidence", "pessimistic")...I really don't understand why A is the reverse of what we want.

[ohthatpatrick]

The conclusion is that "these media critics are wrong", i.e. that
"negative news reports on the economy CANNOT actually harm the economy by damaging people's confidence in it".

Since we're doing Flaw, we would want a way to counterague that
"negative news reports CAN actually harm the economy by damaging people's confidence in it".

As you said, we just need a causal relationship between confidence in the economy and confidence in one's own economic situation.

In order for "negative news reports" to be FIRST in the causal chain, we'd be saying
neg news -> ppl less conf in econ --> ppl less conf in their own $ -> less willing to spend

If we had
neg news --> ppl less conf in econ
and had (A)'s
ppl less conf in their own $ --> ppl less conf in econ

we couldn't chain those together in order to get Negative News to cause both.

[seychelles1718]

What if (A) instead said "one's level of confidence in one's own economic situation affects one's confidence in the state of the economy"?
Is it still wrong?

[hnadgauda]

Question stimulus: fails to consider something...this means if the author considered the answer choice that is correct, then the argument breaks apart. Is this the correct way to interpret the question stimulus?

The core is: People's confidence in their own economic situation affects spending --> The critics are wrong about negative news reports harming the economy (news reports tend to damage people's confidence in the economy which affects their spending and in turn harms the economy)

The gap: Is the gap people are looking at their own economic situation vs the general economy?

I've read the above discussion and still don't understand the gap and why D is correct. Can you please clarify?

[ohthatpatrick]

In regards to this actual argument / gap, try this example:

People say that Janet's happiness depends heavily on whether she's having a good or bad hair day. But these people must be wrong. After all, Janet's happiness depends mainly on whether or not she feels high or low self-esteem that day.

OBJECTION:
Maybe the people are right, her happiness DOES depend heavily on her hair. After all, perhaps how her hair looks is heavily connected to her self-esteem.

The author assumes "if you're happiness is based on self-esteem, then it's NOT based on your hair."
The author fails to consider that "one's self-esteem might be heavily impacted by one's hair"

In the actual argument, the author is saying "People who say spending is related to X are wrong. After all, spending is related to Y."

Well, what if "X is related to Y"? In that case, saying that spending is related to Y makes you more likely to agree that spending is also related to X.

Our author is arguing, "Critics, lack of confidence in the state of the economy DOES NOT affect spending. After all, what affects spending is people's confidence in THEIR OWN economic situations."

(D) weakens the argument by saying "when the state of the economy looks bad, people's confidence in their own economic situation also goes down".

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Any time a Flaw answer choice starts with ...
FAILS TO CONSIDER ______
NEGLECTS / IGNORES THE POSSIBILITY ______

... you can ask yourself, "If ____ is true, would it WEAKEN the argument?"

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Any time a Flaw answer choice starts with ...
TAKES FOR GRANTED ______
PRESUMES _____
FAILS TO SPECIFY ______

... you can ask yourself, "Did the author NEED TO ASSUME ______ ? If we negated _____ , would it WEAKEN the argument?"

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Any time a Flaw answer choice starts with ...
INFERS _____ ON THE BASIS OF ______
CONCLUDES, ON THE GROUNDS THAT _______ , THAT ______
CONFUSES _____ WITH ______
TAKES FOR GRANTED THAT BECAUSE ______ , _______ .

... you can ask yourself, "Do these two _____ 's MATCH THE CORE? Can I assign one to the Evidence and the other to the Conclusion?"