Politician: A major social problem is children hurting other children.

Question

"Politician: A major social problem is children hurting other children. The results of a recent experiment by psychologists establish that watching violent films is at least partly responsible for this aggressive behavior. The psychologists conducted an experiment in which one group of children watched a film of people punching Bobo the Clown dolls. The second group of children was not shown the film. Afterward, both groups of children played together in a room containing a Bobo doll. Most of the children who had seen the film punched the Bobo doll, while most of the other children did not.

Which one of the following, if true, most weakens the politician's argument?

(A) Some of the children who did not punch the Bobo doll, including some who had been shown the film, chastised those who did punch the doll."

(B) The child who punched the Bobo doll the hardest and the most frequently had not been shown the film.

(C) The children who had been shown the film were found to be no more likely than the children who had not been shown the film to punch other children."

(D) Some children who had not been shown the film imitated the behavior of those who had been shown the film and who punched the doll.

(E) Many of the children who participated in the experiment had never seen a Bobo doll before the experiment.

LSAT

GMATNinja · Accepted Answer

There seems to be a lot of confusion about the answer choices, but not a lot of discussion about what the argument is actually saying. So let's get very clear about what is written in this passage.

The politician's conclusion is: The results of the Bobo experiment establish that watching violent films is  at least partly responsible  for  this aggressive behavior.

Wait, what is "this aggressive behavior" referring to again? It's referring to  children hurting other children.  So let's trace the logic of this politician's claim:

Psychologists conducted an experiment involving 2 groups of children. 
  Group 1 watched a film of people punching Bobo dolls. 
  Group 2 was not shown the film. 
  When both groups were subsequently given Bobo dolls, most children in group 1 punched the doll. Most children in group 2 did not punch the doll. 
  Therefore, watching violent films is at least partly responsible for children hurting other children.

What's wrong with this picture? One thing that jumps out right away is that this politician leaps from watching kids punch dolls to claiming that kids are going to punch other kids. Dolls are not children, so the this leaves me wondering how the two can be logically connected. Let's see if any of the answer choices address this gap in reasoning.

Why do we care whether these children are judging each other? The conclusion is that watching films will lead to children hurting each other. Eliminate (A).

A single child in Group 2 punched the doll, and happened to punch it really hard and really frequently. (Steve Martin fans can say this with me: "Somebody hates these dolls! Stay away from the dolls!"). This doesn't change anything for us. It's still true that most children in Group 1 punched the doll, and most children in Group 2 did not punch the doll. And we're still miles away from the conclusion about children hurting other children. Since this fact about one Bobo-punching child doesn't give us anything to weaken that conclusion, it's logically irrelevant. So we'll eliminate (B).

Wow, this choice really is a sucker punch (pun intended) to the conclusion. If Group 1 and Group 2 are equally likely to punch  other children , then it really doesn't matter how the children treat Bobo dolls. The conclusion was that watching violent films is at least partly responsible for  children hurting other children , not  children punching dolls . Choice (C) address this conclusion head-on and basically obliterates it, so we'll keep this choice around.

This tell us nothing about whether children who watched the film are more likely to hurt other children. Eliminate choice (D).

This is totally irrelevant to the conclusion. We only care about effect of films on children's behavior towards other children. Eliminate (E).

(C) is by far the best answer choice, and really the only choice that directly addresses the conclusion presented by this politician. The children seem safe for now, but please say a prayer for Bobo!

PRanjan1988 · Answer

Could someone explain why is C the answer and not B ?

sandesh87 · Answer

Isn't C strengthening the politican's argument?

sony1000 · Answer

It seems that C weakens the argument because the argument speaks of hurting children and not dolls, thus C also speaks of none of children in the experiment being violent against other children.

subhsngh0 · Answer

C says that all children are n more likely to punch other children than doesn't it strengthen the politician's argument as children did imitate punching behavior after watching the movie

DavidTutorexamPAL · Answer

Hey  subhsngh0  - no, it weakens it, since the politician is claiming that the movie is a  cause  for the violence - but if both groups were violent to the same degree, this means it probably is not the cause, but rather something that is common to both groups is.

DavidTutorexamPAL · Answer

sony1000  you're in the right direction, but a small correction: C does not say  none  of the children in the experiment are violent, it just says the violence was the same in both groups (the phrase "no more likely" does not meant "not likely" but rather "not more likely than what's stated next).

DavidTutorexamPAL · Answer

sandesh87  nope, it's weakening. 
The politician is claiming the movie is the cause of the violence: movie ==> violence 
(C) is telling us that the kids who didn't watch the movie are  also  violent: therefore, something  else  must be the reason: something else > violence

anupam87 · Answer

IMHO, we need to find an answer choice which will say that the film is not the primary cause for the children punching the Bobo doll, or there is no difference in behavior between the group of children who has watched the film and the group of children who did not watch the film. Answer choice “C” says that.

exc4libur · Answer

ARGUMENT
  politicians conclude that the partial reason why kids hit others (or show aggressive behavior) is due to watching violent films;
  most kids of one group that watched a violent film were more violent than another group that didn't watch such film.
  assumes that the groups were representative of the whole without bias; but what if the group that watched the film was more inclined to violence before watching and the other group wasn't, then the results would be biased and arg would fall.

WEAKEN
(A) "some": this could weaken, but since the argument states "most", then this would matter;
(B) "children who punched hardest wasn't shown": again, we are worried about "most" not a specific sample;
(D) "some imitated others…" this actually strengthen the argument, since those who didn't watch were watching others and acting more aggressively;
(E) irrelevant;

Answer (C): if both groups were equally likely to punch the doll, then watching/not-watching wasn't the reason why they were acting aggressively.

CEdward · Answer

This is a causal argument. The claim by the Politician is that watching violent films induces violent behaviour in kids.

"Politician: A major social problem is children hurting other children. The results of a recent experiment by psychologists establish that watching violent films is at least partly responsible for this aggressive behavior. The psychologists conducted an experiment in which one group of children watched a film of people punching Bobo the Clown dolls. The second group of children was not shown the film. Afterward, both groups of children played together in a room containing a Bobo doll. Most of the children who had seen the film punched the Bobo doll, while most of the other children did not.

Which one of the following, if true, most weakens the politician's argument?

(A)  Some  of the children who did not punch the Bobo doll, including some who had been shown the film,  chastised  those who did punch the doll."
SOME children chastised other children...shell game

(B) The child who punched the Bobo doll the hardest and the most frequently had not been shown the film.
-this does not go in the direction that we want...children still hurting other children

(C) The children who had been shown the film were found to be  no more likely  than the children who had not been shown the film to punch other children." CORRECT
-well, if the claim is that violent films induces undesirable behaviour, then this provides evidence to the contrary

(D)  Some  children who had not been shown the film imitated the behavior of those who had been shown the film and who punched the doll.
-wrong direction ...strengthens

(E) Many of the children who participated in the experiment had never seen a Bobo doll before the experiment.
-irrelevant

Mavisdu1017 · Answer

Hello expert, GMATNinja I can understand why C is correct, but I think D weakens too. As the conclusion is that watching violent films is responsible for children hurting other children, D says children will imitate what other children do (imitation is from other children but NOT from the film), so maybe violent film is not the culprit. Could you help explain? Much thx.

rvgmat12 · Answer

OA from PowerScore Forum-

Weaken. The correct answer choice is (C)

This politician discusses the social problem of children who hurt other children, and the results of a recent experiment in which children were separated into two groups, one of which was shown a film that featured people hitting a “Bobo the Clown” doll. The other group was shown no film, and when the two groups got together in a room with a Bobo doll, most of the children who had seen the Bobo-hitting film hit the doll, while the majority of those who had seen no film did not hit the doll. The politician concludes, based on these results, that aggressive behavior is attributable, at least partially, to watching violent films.

The stimulus is followed by a Weaken question, so the correct answer choice will somehow undermine the politician’s argument, that the results of the experiment help to establish a link between watching violent films and aggressive behavior.

Answer choice (A): The fact that some (possible as few as one!) of the children chastised the doll punchers does not weaken the politician’s argument, which is that the aggressive behavior of the kids who watched the film lends support to the notion that watching violent films is to blame, at least in part, for the problem of aggressive behavior. Since this vague choice has no effect on the politician’s argument, it cannot be the right answer to this Weaken question.

Answer choice (B): The fact that the one most aggressive child did not see the film does not weaken the politician’s argument that films can contribute to aggressive behavior—it merely shows that aggressiveness can exist in the absence of violent films as well.

Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice. If, as this choice provides, the children who had seen the film were no more likely to hit other children, that weakens the politicians argument. While some children may have mimicked the Bobo-hitting that they had seen in the film, if the hitting was limited to that specific context, and they were no more likely to hit actual children, that weakens the politician’s claim that watching such movies leads to more generally aggressive behavior in general (or that such a claim is established by the results of the Bobo study).

Answer choice (D): This choice supports the notion that children imitate behavior that they see, be it in films or in person; if anything, this would lend support to the author’s argument. In any case, this certainly does not weaken the politician’s argument, so it cannot be the right answer to this Weaken question.

Answer choice (E): Regardless of the children’s previous familiarity with the Bobo dolls, the children who saw films of people hitting the Bobo dolls were more likely to hit the dolls themselves. This choice does not weaken the author’s argument, so it cannot be the right answer choice.

GMATNinja · Answer

Let's start by reviewing the exact words of the passage:

Conclusion : "The results of a recent experiment by psychologists establish that watching violent films is at least partly responsible for this aggressive behavior."    Support : A study showed that "most of the children who had seen the film punched the Bobo doll, while most of the other children did not."

So the right answer should weaken the conclusion that "watching violent films is  at least partly responsible"  for aggressive behavior in children.

Let's now consider (D):

Does this weaken the above argument? Not really. Even if we proved that imitating other children can cause violent behavior, that wouldn't do much to weaken the argument. The argument only claims that watching violent films is "at least  partly responsible. " It never claims that watching violent films is the ONLY culprit.

From another angle: the argument relies on the fact that "most of the children" who saw the film punched Bobo, while most of the others didn't. But even if (D) were true, and some of the children who didn't see the film imitated the ones who did and punched Bobo, that wouldn't weaken the evidence. Bottom line, it would still be true that most children who DID see the film punched Bobo, and most who DIDN'T see the film didn't punch Bobo. You could even argue that the violent behavior of children who didn't see the film was  ultimately  caused by the film, since the imitators' behavior was inspired by children who saw the violent film.

For all of those reasons, we can eliminate (D).

I hope that helps!

agrasan · Answer

Hi experts  GMATNinja   KarishmaB   MartyMurray   IanStewart

(B) The child who punched the Bobo doll the hardest and the most frequently had not been shown the film.

Can we say that (B) is wrong directly on the basis of reasoning that we are given as a fact    "Most of the children who had seen the film punched the Bobo doll, while most of the other children did not."    so (B) is consistent with the fact and it is very much possible that there can be at least one child in group-2 (not shown movie) who would have punched because of the word  "most" ?

MartyMurray · Answer

That captures much of why (B) doesn't work.

We can also notice that the conclusion is the following:

The results of a recent experiment by psychologists establish that watching violent films  is at least partly responsible  for this aggressive behavior.

The conclusion that watching violent films is "partly responsible" is supported by the information on what "most" children did even though something else may have caused what went on with this one particular child.

guddo · Answer

I'd say that’s the right way to reject (B).

The passage already allows exceptions:  “most”  means some kids in the no film group did punch the doll. So (B) can be true without contradicting the result, because it talks about  one  extreme child, not the overall pattern.

And even if (B) is true, it does not show the film was not a cause for the  group-level  difference, one outlier does not defeat a trend.

Politician: A major social problem is children hurting other children.

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Politician: A major social problem is children hurting other children.

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