Psychologists today recognize childhood as a separate stage of life which can only be understood in its own terms, an...

shunhe on August 20, 2020

Hi @Isabel-Zuniga,

Thanks for the question! So let’s take a look here first at the stimulus. We’re told that psychologists today think that childhood is its own stage of life separate from adulthood. But most psychologists think that people who are 70-90 are basically 35 year olds with white hair and extra leisure time. But, says the author, old age is as fundamentally different from young adulthood and middle age as childhood is, which the organization of modern social and economic life is supposed to support. So, the argument concludes, it’s time to acknowledge that we need to research the unique psychology of advanced age seriously.

Now we’re looking for a principle that, if true, would provide the strongest backing for the argument, which is that we need to start doing some serious research into this. So now let’s take a look at (D), which tells us that whenever a society’s economic life is so organized that two distinct times of life are treated as fundamentally different, each time of life can be understood only in terms of its own distinct psychology. Well, if they can be understood ONLY in terms of its own distinct psychology, then we’d better start studying that psychology! And here, specifically, that’s the psychology of advanced age.

Now let’s take a look at (B), which tells us that the principle is that whenever two groups of people are so related to each other that any member of the 2nd group must previously have been a member of the first, people in the first group shouldn’t be regarded as deviant members of the second. OK, but how does this support the conclusion that we should research the unique psychology of old age? It doesn’t, and that’s why (B) isn’t the answer here.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.