Official Solution:
A cultural study examining smiling as a submissive gesture that signals lower social status examined photographs in 200 newspapers and magazines and found that the more wealthy or influential a person was, the less likely that person was to smile for the photographer. Researchers conclude that advertisements for high-end products will use unsmiling models to convey status and exclusivity.
The conclusion that models in advertisements for high-end products will not smile rests on which of the following assumptions?
A. Unsmiling models adequately lend status to the products, even if the models are not wealthy or influential themselves.
B. Advertisements in which the models do not smile will not be as successful as advertisements in which they do.
C. Models in the advertisements for high-end products will have the same high social status as the people toward whom the advertisements are directed.
D. Advertisements will run in the same newspapers and magazines used for the survey.
E. Advertisements featuring a mix of smiling and unsmiling models will be most successful in selling mid-priced products.
Situation: Following the results of a survey on smiling and social status, researchers predict that print ads will use unsmiling models to make their products more attractive to the wealthy and powerful.
Reasoning: Which assumption underlies the researchers’ conclusion that ads for high-end products will use models who do not smile? The survey used published photographs to determine that wealthy and influential people are less likely to smile because smiling is a submissive gesture that signals lower social status. Advertisements for products directed toward the wealthy and influential, the survey concludes, will use models who do not smile as a signal that the products themselves are suited for those with high status.
A. CORRECT. If the lack of a smile is a sufficient signal of high social status, then models who mimic this gesture will lend status to a product, regardless of whether they themselves are wealthy or powerful.
B. This is the opposite of the conclusion reached in the passage.
C. Since the focus of the passage is on the power of the
gesture of not smiling, the actual social status of the models is irrelevant to the success of the advertisements.
D. This assumption is not made in the passage.
E. The passage is not concerned with selling mid-priced products.
Answer: A