Read the following excerpt from Levitt and Dubner's Freakonomics.
The bagel data also reflect how much personal mood seems to affect honesty. Weather, for instance, is a
major factor. Unseasonably pleasant weather inspires people to pay at a higher rate. Unseasonably cold
weather, meanwhile, makes people cheat prolifically; so do heavy rain and wind. Worst are the holidays. The
week of Christmas produces a 2 percent drop in payment rates-again, a 15 percent increase in theft, an
effect on the same magnitude, in reverse, as that of 9/11. Thanksgiving is nearly as bad; the week of
Valentine's Day is also lousy, as is the week straddling April 15. There are, however, a few good holidays: the
weeks that include the Fourth of July, Labor Day, and Columbus Day. The difference in the two sets of
holidays? The low-cheating holidays represent little more than an extra day off from work. The high-cheating
holidays are fraught with miscellaneous anxieties and the high expectations of loved ones.
The excerpt is an example of inductive reasoning because the authors
O work from a generalization to formulate specific examples.
O arrive at a generalization after starting with another generalization
formulate a generalization by studying specific examples.
arrive at specific examples by studying other examples.