Critical Reasoning (CR) | Re: Psychologist: In a study, researchers gave 100 volunteers a psychologi

Thanks for all of the great replies! It looks like there is still some confusion surrounding this question, so let's try to break it down...

The conclusion is that "attaining an exceptionally high level of self-esteem greatly improves one’s social skills." In other words, attaining an exceptionally high level of self-esteem will CAUSE a great improvement in one's social skills. How does the author arrive at thatconclusion?

• 100 volunteers take a psychological questionnaire to measure their self-esteem.
• Each volunteer is also asked to rate his or her own social skills. Note that their self-esteem was MEASURED by the questionnaire while their social skills were rated by the volunteers themselves.
• Based on the results of the questionnaire, the psychologists could break up the 100 volunteers into groups, including those with the highest levels of self-esteem and those with moderate levels of self esteem.
• Now the psychologists could compare the SELF-RATED social skills of those two groups: "the volunteers with the highest levels of self-esteem consistently rated themselves as having much better social skills than did the volunteers with moderate levels."