Researchers have concluded from a survey of people aged 65 that emotio

Question

Researchers have concluded from a survey of people aged 65 that emotional well-being in adulthood is closely related to intimacy with siblings earlier in life. Those surveyed who had never had any siblings or who said that at college age they were emotionally distant from their siblings were emotionally less well adjusted at 65 than were those who had been close to at least one brother or sister.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the researchers’ argument?

(A) As they get older, many people think more about their mortality and thus must confront feelings of loneliness and isolation.

(B) People suffering from the emotional distress of maladjustment usually remember being less intimate with other people than they actually were.

(C) Memory of one’s past plays a greater role in the emotional well-being of older people than it does in that of younger people.

(D) Few people can correctly identify the true sources of their emotional well-being or of their emotional difficulties.

(E) Siblings are more likely to have major arguments and deep differences of opinion at college age than at any other time of their lives.

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Skywalker18 · Accepted Answer

Researchers have concluded from a survey of people aged 65 that emotional well-being in adulthood is closely related to intimacy with siblings earlier in life. Those surveyed who had never had any siblings or who said that at college age they were emotionally distant from their siblings were emotionally less well adjusted at 65 than were those who had been close to at least one brother or sister.

Type - weaken
Boil it down - intimacy with siblings earlier in life --> emotional well-being in adulthood

(A) As they get older, many people think more about their mortality and thus must confront feelings of loneliness and isolation. - Irrelevant

(B) People suffering from the emotional distress of maladjustment usually remember being less intimate with other people than they actually were. - Correct; it suggests that the data is biased; people who well tend to remember the good times whereas people who are unwell tend to remember the bad times. So it may not be that intimacy leads to emotional well-being as the author concludes, but rather that emotional well-being makes memories of intimacy stand out.

(C) Memory of one’s past plays a greater role in the emotional well-being of older people than it does in that of younger people. - Irrelevant - we are not comparing old and young people here

(D) Few people can correctly identify the true sources of their emotional well-being or of their emotional difficulties. - Irrelevant because the argument does not rely on people's ability to understand why they are emotionally well/unwell. It relies only on the existence of a cause-effect relationship between intimacy in early life and emotional well-being in later life

(E) Siblings are more likely to have major arguments and deep differences of opinion at college age than at any other time of their lives. - Irrelevant

shubhraghosh · Answer

I'd go with B. Option B shows a factual error in the question stimulus, that's normally a correct choice for weakener questions.

(A) As they get older, many people think more about their mortality and thus must confront feelings of loneliness and isolation. -->We need a linkage with the siblings during younger age. Nothing links this answer to the peoples' connects with siblings.

(B) People suffering from the emotional distress of maladjustment usually remember being less intimate with other people than they actually were. --> Describes a flaw in the stimulus and hence likely to be correct

(C) Memory of one’s past plays a greater role in the emotional well-being of older people than it does in that of younger people. --> Similar to option A. Nothing connects the stimulus to the siblings. It's a standalone fact that doesn't impact the argument in any way.

(D) Few people can correctly identify the true sources of their emotional well-being or of their emotional difficulties. --> This places a question on whether the respondents were actually emotionally stressed. Not a central part of the argument.

(E) Siblings are more likely to have major arguments and deep differences of opinion at college age than at any other time of their lives. --> One can have arguments yet share a strong emotional bond, this doesn't necessarily show that there was a lack of emotional bond.

Hence (B)

sriramsundaram91 · Answer

I got this one wrong. But analysing the solution gave me beautiful insights...

(B) People suffering from the emotional distress of maladjustment usually remember being less intimate with other people than they actually were.

This option says... if a person A is emotionally distressed of maladjustment... A remembers being less intimate with their brothers/sisters than they actually were... which means A was emotionally close with his/her brother or sister... but he remembers being not very close... because he is currently under emotional stress.. therefore the survey saying emotional closeness in childhood is a measure of emotional stability in old age is wrong.. because it is based on false data.. A is emotionally distressed now.. but that is not because he was not close with A's brother/ sister ... Hats off to this question and to GMAT...

sayan640 · Answer

Conclusion :- Emotional well-being in adulthood is closely related to intimacy with siblings earlier in life.

For weakening we need to show that "Emotional well-being in adulthood is NOT closely related to intimacy with siblings earlier in life. "

Option B states that "People suffering from the emotional distress of maladjustment usually remember being less intimate with other people than they actually were."

That means the people suffering from the emotional distress of maladjustment were also intimate with their siblings but they are now suffering from emotional distress.

Hence , we can show that "Emotional well-being in adulthood is NOT closely related to intimacy with siblings earlier in life. "

B is the answer.

Please give me kudos if you liked my explanation.

krittapat · Answer

Could you please help explain why option C is incorrect?
Is it because it's trying to address older people VS younger people instead of comparing older people with close siblings VS older ones without siblings?
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PyjamaScientist · Answer

krittapat  I hope one of the legends whom you have tagged reply. If not, I hope this helps-

Option (C), brings in  outside  information that you really don't need to undermine the conclusion of our argument.

(C) states,  "Memory of one’s past plays a greater role in the emotional well-being of older people than it does in that of younger people."

But our conclusion is, "  emotional well-being in adulthood is closely related to intimacy with siblings earlier in life."  .

You need to ask-  How does (C) affect our conclusion?

Even if the information presented in (C) is  true , does it  weaken   your belief in the conclusion of our argument?  Maybe  , memories do play a greater role in the emotional well being of older people than it does in that of younger people, but that fact doesn't undermine the claim that emotional well being in adulthood is related to intimacy with siblings earlier. So, that way (C) doesn't really do much to either  weaken   or strengthen our conclusion as it is quite irrelevant to our conclusion at hand.

Hope it helps.

GMATNinja · Answer

You're on the right track!

We're trying to weaken the argument that "emotional well-being in adulthood is closely related to intimacy with siblings earlier in life." Researchers have come to this conclusion after surveying a bunch of older people. The old people with close connections to siblings in their early years were happier than the old people who did not have such close connections.

As you've noted, this sets up a comparison between two groups of older people.

Here's (C):
 
(C) talks about older people in general and compares these old people to younger people. The old people are more impacted by their memories.

That's completely compatible with the researchers' argument -- the researchers don't particularly care whether young people are impacted by memories. They only care that old people can be sorted into different groups based on the strength of their connections to siblings.

(C) doesn't weaken the author's argument, so eliminate (C).

I hope that helps!

Raman109 · Answer

The key here is the relationship. 
Intimacy with siblings >> Emotional well-being in adulthood

To weaken- what if the relationship is reversed - People who are emotionally well >> they remember the good memories. That's what B does.

Option elimination -

(A) As they get older, many people think more about their mortality and thus must confront feelings of loneliness and isolation. - What they should do is out of scope.

(B) People suffering from the emotional distress of maladjustment usually remember being less intimate with other people than they actually were. - ok

(C) Memory of one’s past plays a greater role in the emotional well-being of older people than it does in that of younger people. - Memory and the comparison with younger people are out of scope.

(D) Few people can correctly identify the true sources of their emotional well-being or of their emotional difficulties. - The scope of the argument is limited to an option that will weaken the relationship "Intimacy with siblings >> Emotional well-being in adulthood". Does it in any way affect the scope? No

(E) Siblings are more likely to have major arguments and deep differences of opinion at college age than at any other time of their lives. - Distortion

Kratosgmat · Answer

ts quite easy to select B.....
As per argument better intimacy with siblings earlier in life = better emotional well-being

but 
option says People suffering from the emotional distress remember being less intimate with other people than they actually were.

So, even if they were very close in childhood, the person would have forgotten at age 65 and this doesnt ensure better emotional well-being. Or rather, better intimacy with siblings earlier in life doesnt necessarily mean better emotional well-being

kkannan2 · Answer

GMATNinja  - What is wrong with Choice (A) here? How is it easy to eliminate as irrelevant? If people who are older start thinking about mortality and start confronting feelings of loneliness and isolation as a result, then wouldn't this offer us an alternative explanation for why people's emotional well-being is affected negatively as they age (aside from intimacy from their siblings earlier in life)? All we have from the passage is mere correlation: "Those surveyed who had never had any siblings or who said that at college age they were emotionally distant from their siblings were emotionally less well adjusted at 65 than were those who had been close to at least one brother or sister". This is not enough to say that lack of intimacy with siblings earlier in life leads to less emotional adjustment at 65 than with intimacy with siblings earlier in life does. Need some help with this one.

Oppenheimer1945 · Answer

Totally agree. Although B is Inverse of Cause & Effect, but A is also not easy to elim

GMATNinja · Answer

If (A) is true, then it should affect both groups in the survey equally. If thinking about mortality and confronting feelings of loneliness and isolation is something that many people do as they get older, why is there a discrepancy between the two groups?

(A) doesn't change the survey results, and those results indicate that there's a discrepancy that needs to be explained -- the researchers' argument is applicable regardless of whether (A) is true.

I hope that helps a bit!

VerbalBot · Answer

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Researchers have concluded from a survey of people aged 65 that emotio

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