Self-study
Support In casual conversation, people experience little psychological discomfort in admitting that they have some particular character flaw, but only if they consider trivial the flaw to which they admit. ██████████ ██ ██ █ ██████ ████████████ ██ ██████████ ███████ ██████ ████ ██ ██ ███ ███ ████ ██████████ █████████ █████ ███ ██████████ ████ ███ ████████ ████ ████ ██ ██ ████████
Structure: Principle-Application
The argument starts with a general principle: people will experience little psychological discomfort admitting a character flaw in a casual conversation only if they consider the flaw trivial. The argument then draws a conclusion that applies the principle to a more specific situation: if someone in a given casual conversation "readily admits" to a serious character flaw, they must not think the flaw is serious.
Notable Assumptions
When we apply a principle to a situation, we assume the situation fits the principle. Let's check if that's true for this argument. The principle says that in a casual conversation, if someone experiences little psychological discomfort admitting a character flaw, they must view the flaw as trivial:
little psychological discomfort → flaw trivial
The conclusion states that if, in some casual conversation, a person readily admits to a serious character flaw, they must not think the flaw is serious:
readily admits → not think flaw serious
Though thinking a flaw is "trivial" and thinking a flaw is "not serious" basically mean the same thing, the argument still makes a significant jump in applying the principle: it assumes that if someone "readily admits" something, that person must experience "little psychological discomfort" in admitting it. In other words:
readily admit → little psychological discomfort
This assumption isn't necessarily true, but it's certainly a necessary assumption for this argument to be true. If this were false — if someone could readily admit to something even while experiencing a high level of psychological discomfort — then the argument's application of the principle would be incorrect.
22.
Which one of the following ██ ██ ██████████ █████████ ██ ███ █████████
a
Most character flaws ███ ██████████ ███████ ██ █████ ███ ████ █████
This isn't a necessary assumption. Whether or not most character flaws are considered serious by the people who have them only changes how many of those flaws they can admit without much psychological discomfort, according to this argument. But the argument is about the reasons people admit certain flaws and the way they admit those flaws (readily or not, and with or without psychological discomfort) — not which specific flaws, or how many flaws, they are willing to admit.
b
People admit to ██████ ████ █████ █████████ █████ ████ ████ █████ ██████ ████████ ████████
Irrelevant. The argument doesn't talk at all about flaws other people think are trivial. Even if this answer choice weren't true, the argument could still be true, because a person could still consider their own flaws trivial and be willing to admit them even if most other people did not think they were trivial.
c
In casual conversation, ██████ █████ ██ ██████ █████████ █████ ████ ████ ████ █████
Irrelevant. The argument isn't about the conversational situations where people confess to a character flaw, but more so about how they do it — "readily" and/or with little psychological discomfort — and whether they consider those flaws serious. We could negate this answer choice and the argument could still be true.
d
In casual conversation, ██████ ███████ █████ ██ ██████ █ █████████ ████ ████ ████ ████ █████████ ██████ ████ ██████ █████████████ ███████████
Correct. This is exactly the assumption we identified in our analysis:
readily admit → little psychological discomfort
If this assumption weren't true — i.e., if it were possible for someone to readily admit to something even when they experienced a good deal of psychological discomfort — then the argument would fall apart, because the principle would no longer apply to the situation in the conclusion.
e
In casual conversation, ██████ ██ ███ █████ ██ ██████ ████ █████ ████ ██████ ██ ███████████ ██████████ ██ █████ ██████████
Irrelevant. The argument talks about how people themselves view their own character flaws. We don't know how this relates to whether or not those flaws give others an unfavorable impression of their character. This statement doesn't have to be true for the argument to be true. Even if people do speak about things that would give others an unfavorable impression of their character, the reasons they do so might still be what the argument describes — that they view those particular things as trivial. So negating (E) doesn't destroy the argument.