Self-study
Historian: One traditional childrearing practice in the nineteenth century was to make a child who misbehaved sit alone outside. ██████ ███████ ██ █████ ████████ ████ ███ █████ ███ ███████████ █████████ ████ █████ █████████████ █████ ██████████ ██ ████ ████████ ███████ ████ ███████ ████ ████ █████████ ██████ ███ ███████ ███████████ ███ ████ ██████ ██ ██████████ ███████████ █████ ████ ████ █████████ ██ ███████ ████████ ██ ███ █████████ ████ ██████ ██████ █████ ████ ███████████ ████████ █████ ██ ████████ ██ █████████ ██ ██████ ███ ██ ███████
Summary
It was once traditional to make misbehaved children sit alone outside, and passersby would know they had misbehaved.
Many child psychologists don’t endorse this practice based on two beliefs: (1) that it damages children’s self-esteem; and (2) that damage to children’s self-esteem makes them less confident as adults.
Children raised with the traditional practice do not tend to have lower confidence levels than adults who never underwent this practice.
Very Strongly Supported Conclusions
Either the traditional practice didn’t tend to damage children’s self-esteem, or childhood self-esteem damage doesn’t harm adult confidence.
If the traditional practice damaged children’s self-esteem, childhood self-esteem damage doesn’t tend to harm adult confidence.
If childhood self-esteem damage harms adult confidence, the traditional practice didn’t tend to damage children’s self-esteem.
11.
Which one of the following ███ ██ ████████ ████████ ████ ███ ███████████ ███████████
a
The beliefs of ████ ███████████ █████ █████████████ █████ ███ ████████████ ██ ████ ██ ███████████ ███ ██████████
Unsupported. It’s possible that the child psychologists are wrong to believe self-esteem loss leads to lowered confidence, but it’s also possible that the childrearing practice in question actually didn’t tend to cause self-esteem loss.
b
Some of the ████ █████████ ███████ ██ ████ ██ ████ ██ ███ █████ █████████ ███████ ████ ██████ █████ ███ ███████████ ████████ ██ █████████
Unsupported. The stimulus only mentions average confidence levels, which tells us nothing about the margins. Maybe the most and least confident adults weren’t raised under the practice and the mid-confidence adults were, averaging out to the same confidence level in both groups.
c
With the traditional ████████████ █████████ █████████ ███ ███ ██████ ████ ███████ ██████████ █████ ██████████ ████████ ██ █████████ ████ █████████
Anti-supported. We know that the children were made to sit outside because they misbehaved, and we also know that anyone passing by would conclude that the children sitting outside had misbehaved. Therefore, everyone passing by would make the correct inference!
d
The most confident ██████ ███ █████ ███ █████████ ███ ███████ █████ ██ ███████████ ██ ██████████
Unsupported. We know many psychologists think that childhood self-esteem loss leads to lower adult confidence, but we don’t know if that’s true. We also don’t know whether high self-esteem correlates with high confidence levels, or even if child psychologists believe it might!
e
If children's loss ██ ███████████ █████ ████ ████ █████████ ██ ███████ ████ ███ ███████████ ████████████ ████████ ██ ████████ ███ ███ ████ ██ █████ ███████████ ████ ██ ████████████
Strongly supported. Since adults raised with the practice tend to be as confident as other adults, one of the psychologists’ claims must be wrong: either self-esteem loss doesn’t make children less confident as adults, or the practice didn’t tend to cause self-esteem loss.