Read the following excerpt from Levitt and Dubner’s Freakonomics . He also believes that employees further up the corporate ladder cheat more than those down below. He got this idea after delivering for years to one company spread out over three floors—an executive floor on top and two lower floors with sales, service, and administrative employees (Feldman wondered if perhaps the executives cheated out of an overdeveloped sense of entitlement. What he didn’t consider is that perhaps cheating was how they got to be executives.) Which best describes the type of reasoning the excerpt uses?
Answer
A
Feldman uses inductive reasoning because he formulates a generalization based on specific examples.
B
Feldman uses deductive reasoning because he arrives at a broad generalization based on another generalization.
C
Feldman uses deductive reasoning because he works from a generalization to arrive at specific examples.
D
Feldman uses inductive reasoning because he formulates a generalization based mostly on hearsay.
Explanation
Feldman observes a specific company, where employees worked on different floors, and uses that experience to form a broader claim that employees higher up the corporate ladder cheat more. Reasoning from particular observations to a generalization is inductive reasoning. Choice D describes this correctly: he formulates a generalization based on specific examples.
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