Multiple choice

Directions: For this question, select the best of the answer choices given.

In a psychological experiment conducted at South bay University, groups of men with various levels of education read stories in which people caused harm, some of them doing so intentionally, and some accidentally. When asked about appropriate penalization for those who had caused harm, the less educated men, unlike the educated ones, assigned punishments that did not vary according to whether the harm was done intentionally or accidentally. Uneducated men, then, do not regard people's intentions as relevant to penalization. Which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the conclusion above?

  1. In these stories, the severity of the harm produced was clearly stated.

  2. In interpreting these stories, the listeners had to draw on a relatively feminine sense of human psychology in order to tell whether harm was produced intentionally or accidentally.

  3. Relatively uneducated men are as likely to produce harm unintentionally as are more educated men.

  4. The more educated men assigned penalization in a way that closely resembled the way women had assign penalization in a similar experiment.
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B Correct answer
Explanation

The best answer is (2). Choice (2) indicates that less educated men might be unable to tell whether the harm in the stories was produced intentionally. Thus, even if less educated men do regard people's intentions as relevant, they might be unable to apply this criterion here. (2), therefore, undermines the conclusion's support.

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