Self-study
Bethany: Psychologists have discovered a technique for replacing one's nightmares with pleasant dreams, and Support have successfully taught it to adults suffering from chronic nightmares. ███████ ████ █████ ████ ███████████████ ████████ ███ ██████████ ██████ ██ ██████ ████ ██████████ ██ ███████ █████ █████████████ ██████ ██████ ███████ ██████ ███████████ ███████████████ ████████ ██ ████ █████ ████████ ███ ██ ██████ ███ █████████ ███ █████████ █████ ██████████ ████ ████████ ███████
Summary
Bethany concludes that psychologists should try to identify nightmare-prone children and teach them the effective new technique. Why? Because nightmare-prone children are likely to be nightmare-prone adults.
Notable Assumptions
Bethany concludes that psychologists should teach the technique to nightmare-prone children, but her premises never establish when psychologists should do something. She’s assuming that they should try to help children with their nightmares. Since nightmare-prone children are likely to become nightmare-prone adults, she may also assume that psychologists should help prevent people from becoming nightmare-prone adults.
We need a rule or principle that helps justify her conclusion by confirming that psychologists should indeed try to identify nightmare-prone children and teach them the technique.
13.
Which one of the following ███████████ ██ ██████ ████ █████ ██ ███████ ███████ ███ ██████████ ██ █████████ █████████
a
Psychologists should make ██ ██████ ██ █████████ ███ ███████ ████████ ███ ██████████ █████ ██ ██████████ █████ █████ ████████ ███ ████
This leads to the wrong conclusion. Bethany concludes that psychologists should try to identify nightmare-prone children and teach them the technique. Whether they should try to figure out why some kids are nightmare-prone does not lead to her conclusion.
b
Any psychological technique ████ ███ ██ ████████████ ██████ ██ █ █████ ███ ████ ██ ████████████ ██████ ██ ██ ██████
Bethany does assume that the technique can be successfully taught to children because it can be successfully taught to adults. But (B) has this reversed. It also doesn’t help us to determine why psychologists should teach the technique to children.
c
Psychologists should do ██████████ ████ ███ ██ ████████ ███ ██████ ██ ██████ ████████ ██ ███████ ███████████
Nightmare-prone children are likely to become nightmare-prone adults. If psychologists should do everything they can to minimize the number of nightmare-prone adults, this helps justify the conclusion that they should try to identify nightmare-prone children and teach them the technique.
d
Identifying nightmare-prone children ██ █████████ ████ █████████ ████ ████████ ██████ ███ █████████ ███ █████████ ██████████ ████ ████████ ███████
It doesn’t matter how difficult it is to identify nightmare-prone children. The question remains whether psychologists should try to identify nightmare-prone children anyway.
e
Psychologists should not █████ ███ █████████ ███ █████████ ██████████ ████ ████████ ██████ ██ ████████ ███ ███ ████████ ██ ██████ ████ ██████████ ██ ███████
Bethany is addressing what psychologists should do. She concludes that they should teach the technique to children who are likely to become nightmare-prone adults. (E) doesn’t help justify this conclusion.