Self-study
A recent poll showed that almost half of the city's residents believe that Mayor Walker is guilty of ethics violations. █████████████ ████████ ██ ███████ ██ █████ ████████ ██████ ████████ ███████████ ██ █████ ██ ██ ████ ██ ██████████ █████ ██ ██ █████ ████ ██ ███ ██████ ██████ ███████ ███ ██ ██████ ███████████
"Surprising" Phenomenon
Why didn’t the percent of people who judged Walker’s performance as mayor to be good or excellent go down after he was accused of ethics violations, even though almost half surveyed believe those accusations?
Objective
The correct answer should give us a reason to think that almost half of people believing Walker violated ethics would not impact the percent who judge his performance to be good or excellent. For example, maybe the people who believe his performance to be good or excellent are the ones who don’t believe he violated ethics. Or maybe ethics violations are not a factor people care about when judging a mayor’s performance.
26.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ █████ ██ ███████ ███ ██████████ ████ ██████ ██████
a
Almost all of ███ ██████ ███ ███████ ████ ██████ ██ ██████ ██ ██████ ██████████ ███ ████████ ████ ██████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ █████ ███████████ ████ ███ ███████████ ██ █████ ███ █████
If almost all who believe he violated ethics already thought his performance was poor, their new belief about his violations wouldn’t change the percent who judge his performance good/excellent. Their opinions weren’t going from good/excellent to poor; they were already poor.
b
In the time █████ ██████ ███ ███████ ██ ██████ ███████████ █████ ███ ████ ██ ████████ ██ ███ ██████████ ██ ████ █████████ ███ █████ ███ ███████████ ██ ████████ █████████ █████████ ██ ██ ████ ██ ██████████
If this has any effect, it makes the discrepancy harder to explain. On top of the ethics violations, people’s opinion about Walker’s opponents is now more positive. So why would opinion about Walker’s performance not become more negative?
c
About a fifth ██ █████ ██████ ███ ███ ████ ████ ██████ ███ ████ ███████ ██ ██████ ███████████
We already know about half believe Walker violated ethics. The 20% who weren’t aware of the accusations could be among the people who don’t believe he violated ethics. This doesn’t add information that could explain why opinion about Walker’s performance hasn’t declined.
d
Walker is currently ██ ███ ███████████ ███ ██████████████ ██████ ██ ███ ████ ████ █████████ ███████ ███ ████████ █████████
This doesn’t help explain how opinion about Walker’s performance hasn’t declined. If anything, we’d expect activities from anticorruption groups to negatively affect opinion about Walker’s performance.
e
Walker has defended ███████ ███████ ███ ███████████ ██ ███████ ████ ███ ███████ ██████ ██████████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ ██████ ████████ ██ ███ █████ ████████
Walker’s argument in his defense doesn’t explain why opinion about his performance hasn’t declined. We don’t have any reason to think people believe his defense or that his defense would cause people to give less weight to the violations when judging his performance as mayor.