PrepTest 120, Section 4, Question 22
Repressors—people who unconsciously inhibit their display of emotion—exhibit(48 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(7 more words not shown)
- AEncountering an emotion-provoking(12 more words not shown)
- BNonrepressors can inhibit(11 more words not shown)
- CDespite their outward(14 more words not shown)
- DPeople who are(16 more words not shown)
- EIn situations that(19 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
What if the emotional situation itself makes the heart race?
Both groups face an emotion-provoking event. Both hold back their outward reactions, although repressors do it unconsciously and nonrepressors do it deliberately. Both show a sharp rise in heart rate. The author credits the holding back, but the emotional event is present in both cases too.
Imagine someone receiving upsetting news and trying not to show distress. Their heart might beat faster because the news is upsetting, whether or not they hide their reaction. Observing the hidden emotion and the faster heartbeat together wouldn't tell us that the first caused the second.
What we’re looking for
The required assumption needs to protect the author's explanation against that possibility. I'd look for a claim that the emotional event alone isn't enough to produce the response we're attributing to suppressing its display.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
If merely encountering the emotional situation were enough to make nonrepressors' hearts race, the observation wouldn't establish that consciously holding back their reactions caused that rise. The author needs to rule out that explanation to make the stated inference from these observations.
A does that defensive work. It doesn't prove that inhibition is the cause or settle every other possible explanation. It removes the immediate alternative we noticed: perhaps the event itself accounts for the response.
- B
The two groups needn't be equally good at hiding emotion for inhibiting its display to affect their heart rates. A nonrepressor might show a little more emotion than a repressor while both experience the proposed physiological effect. The argument needs a causal connection, not equal skill at maintaining an outward appearance.
- C
Repressors might feel more excited, less excited, or equally excited. The author hasn't compared the strength of the two groups' feelings and doesn't need repressors to feel more. In fact, differences in emotional intensity would give us another reason to be careful about attributing the heart-rate response specifically to inhibition.
- D
Refraining from feeling an emotion is different from refraining from displaying it. The passage concerns people who encounter emotional situations and hold back what they show. It doesn't require them to turn off the feelings themselves, or to do so when an experimenter asks.
- E
We don't need identical starting heart rates. Someone starting at a higher rate and someone starting at a lower rate could both experience a sharp increase. The claim concerns what causes that increase during emotional situations, not whether the two groups have the same average rate in uneventful situations.
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