Psychologist: There are theories that posit completely different causa

Question

Psychologist: There are theories that posit completely different causal mechanisms from those posited by Freudian psychological theory and that are more successful at predicting human behavior. Therefore, Freudian theories of behavior, no matter how suggestive or complex they are, ought to be abandoned in favor of these other theories.

Which one of the following is an assumption on which the psychologist’s argument depends?

(A) Freudian theories have offered interesting suggestions, which have been shown to be false, about the causes of human behavior.

(B) A psychological theory with greater predictive success than another is scientifically preferable to it.

(C) Freudian theory has had little success in predicting how people will behave in various situations.

(D) Measuring the predictive success of a psychological theory involves considering other theories that attempt to explain the same phenomena.

(E) Scientific theories become impractical if they posit causal mechanisms beyond a certain level of complexity

sudarshan22 · Answer

+1 for   B  .

Conclusion  :
In favor of theories that are  more successful  at predicting human behavior, Freudian theories of behavior(less successful)  should be abandoned .

(B) A psychological theory with greater predictive success than another is scientifically preferable to it. -->  Correct, negate the statement and see how it affects the aforementioned conclusion

Hence,   B  .

Jatinjhalani · Answer

Approach - 
1) Eliminate A, C, D and E. They do not require Freud theory to be abondaned or rejected in favor of other theories

Lowkya · Answer

Can you explain how to choose between B and C?

vaibhav1221 · Answer

Hi!

Option C is the premise of the argument. 
Read the first line of the argument.

An assumption is what links the premise to the conclusion. So, the assumption can neither be inferred from the premise or the conclusion.

Hope it helps.

Regards,
V

Lowkya · Answer

The argument says that "other theories" are more successful in predicting than "F theory".
So, "F theories" should be abandoned.
Does this definitely indicate "F theory" is less successful than "other theories"?

vaibhav1221 · Answer

Yes, if you assume the theories are used ONLY to predict human behaviour. Otherwise, it might be a yes-no answer and not definitive.
 
Overall less successful or less successful at predicting human behaviour. The aforementioned assumption makes things clear.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
V

TheNightKing · Answer

My only concern with Option B is "scientifically preferable to it." Why Scientifically preferable? If I remove that word I understand clearly why it would be the OA.
The passage states nothing about science. It could just just preferred over the other because of human factor too.

Thoughts?

Note : Please tag me if you are going to answer my query. Thank you!

mykrasovski · Answer

TheNightKing  I think it is okay to have a bit of new information in Assumption, Weaken, and Strengthen questions.

The argument states that not only new theories are different from those of F, the new theories are also more precise in terms of prediction. And then Psychologist concludes that F's theories should be abandoned. Why is that? Because, presumably, F's theories are not good at predicting human behavior.

There is a very clear gap that we need to close, i.e. F's theories are not as good at predicting human behavior as the new theories are. Option (B) nicely closes the gap. We can replace "scientifically" with "practically" and option (B) will still work very well.

TheNightKing · Answer

I see what you are saying. It makes sense!

Yeah. You're right. I just wasn't open enough to new information so the usage of scientifically threw me off.

Thank you!

Rashed12 · Answer

Would anyone help me to get explanation why D is incorrect?

XyLan · Answer

Rashed12 ,

Option-D is already given in the premise:
  Measuring the predictive SUCCESS of a psychological theory involves considering OTHER  theories    that attempt to  EXPLAIN  the same phenomena.

There are  theories  that  POSIT  completely different causal mechanisms from those posited by Freudian psychological theory  and  that are more SUCCESSFUL at predicting human behaviour.

Even if we Negate Option-D, it goes against the information given in the premise.

rajshreeasati · Answer

Read CR Passages in between the lines is very very important, but to be able to get the bigger picture of what is actually happening in the passage is even more important, otherwise you only juggle between facts, facts, premise conclusion etc. without actually understanding the logical structure.

Conclusion - Abandon F.D Theory of behaviour in favor of other theories!
Why? - because - 1) it has presented different causal mech and 2) Other theory had greater success in prediction of Human Behavior.

Here the Author before making such a bold claim of abandoning must have thought that hmmm... if FD theory got lesser success in predicting the human behavior, it must be abandoned! So basically, whichever theory has more success, we wont abandon it.

(A) Freudian theories have offered interesting suggestions, which have been shown to be false, about the causes of human behavior. - Who knows if his suggestions are false or not. It doesnt impact our conclusion - Irrelevant

(B) A psychological theory with greater predictive success than another is scientifically preferable to it. - Definitely what we assumed - Correct

(C) Freudian theory has had little success in predicting how people will behave in various situations. - this is an inference that we could draw from the premise of the passage, hence it is not an assumption - Out of Scope

(D) Measuring the predictive success of a psychological theory involves considering other theories that attempt to explain the same phenomena. - This is again an inference that we could draw that tells us how we measure success of a theory, but it doesnt impact our conclusion! - Out of Scope

(E) Scientific theories become impractical if they posit causal mechanisms beyond a certain level of complexity - FD theory will be abandoned not because it is complex. There is some other reason for its abandonment. Maybe the author likes complexity of any theory - Out of Scope

VerbalBot · Answer

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Psychologist: There are theories that posit completely different causa

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Psychologist: There are theories that posit completely different causa

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