Explanation
Correct answer: B.
Choice B is the best answer because it most accurately describes what the text implies about participants’ responses to disagreement. The text describes a study in which participants were asked to explain their position on an issue to a listener, who then provided a written summary of that position that also expressed their level of agreement. The participants were then asked, based on these summaries, to rate listeners’ listening skill. The text indicates that researchers embedded markers of attentive listening, such as references to details, in some of the summaries, expecting that these markers would improve the participants’ perceptions of listening skill even when the listeners disagreed. Instead, participants rated disagreeing listeners as less skilled, or attentive, “regardless of the other traits of the listeners’ summaries.” This means that even when summaries contained evidence of attentive listening, participants still judged disagreeing listeners as less skilled—in effect, disregarding evidence that those listeners had been attentive.
Why the other choices are wrong
Choice A
Choice A is incorrect. Although the text does suggest that participants tended to disregard evidence of attentiveness when listeners disagreed with their position on the topic they discussed, it doesn’t address participants’ level of personal investment in these topics; therefore, the text can’t support any conclusions about how personal investment in a topic affected participants’ perceptions of the listening skill of disagreeing listeners.
Choice C
Choice C is incorrect because it directly contradicts the text. The text states that participants rated disagreeing listeners as less skilled regardless of the other traits of the listeners’ summaries, which means markers of attentiveness (specific details) didn’t lead participants to regard disagreeing listeners as more attentive. Instead, disagreement alone determined the participants’ lower ratings. Moreover, the text doesn’t address whether participants maintained their positions based on the listeners’ summaries. The text focuses on factors affecting participants’ perceptions of listeners’ attentiveness, not on how features of listeners’ summaries influenced the participants’ views of the sociopolitical issue they discussed.
Choice D
Choice D is incorrect because the text indicates the opposite: participants didn’t give higher ratings to disagreeing listeners whose summaries included markers of attentiveness than to disagreeing listeners whose summaries didn’t include these markers. Rather, the text states that participants rated disagreeing listeners as less skilled than agreeing listeners regardless of the other traits of the summaries, meaning attentiveness markers had no positive effect when listeners’ summaries expressed disagreement.