#3 - Psychologist: In our study, participants who were

[Administrator]

Please post below with any questions!

[1month2go]

Please could you explain why answer D is the most correct answer. I see that D encapsulates the "very similar object" part of the psychologists argument, but I don't fully understand why this answer is more appropriate than C or E for example.

Thanks!

[Alex Bodaken]

1month2go,

Thanks for the question! Let me see if I can help. This is a resolve the paradox question, which means that we first must understand the paradox created by the statements in the stimulus. We can summarize the paradox as such: people aren't willing to pay as much money for a mug as they would sell it for. That doesn't seem to make sense - after all, if people had a consistent value of the mug, they would be willing to pay and sell it for the same amount. So we need an answer choice that helps to explain this. Answer choice (D) does just that: if it is true that "People tend to value an object that they do not own less than they value a very similar object that they already own," then the people's reactions make sense...they are valuing it less when they don't own it (and are in position to buy it) than when they own it (and are in the position to sell it). By contrast, answer choice (C) is incorrect because we have no idea how much these items sold for in the past, and therefore can't make a determination on how that price affects people's perceptions of value; answer choice (E) is incorrect because we know nothing about how much people value objects they've been given and cannot use it evaluate this stimulus.

Hope that helps!
Alex