The J-curve hypothesis
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The J-curve hypothesis
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[post_date] => 2024-12-25 11:36:15
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[post_content] => Practice Passage (Question 1-5)
*This passage is the property of Khan Academy and has been reformatted into an AAMC-style interface in their entirety by MedLife Mastery. MedLife Mastery does not endorse and is not an affiliate of Khan Academy.
Suppose that in the year 2100, the world population has stabilized at 10 billion people. A hypothetical country Zed has a population of 50 million and its agricultural lands are gradually deteriorating. Prior to this, Zed had had a prolonged period of improvement in living conditions, but in the last decade, these living improvements were followed by a sharp period of decline due to the rapidly growing population, decreasing food resources, the lagging behind of the public infrastructure. According to the “J-curve hypothesis”, under such circumstances, citizens face these injustices and would rise up in the social system to engage in collective rebellion. The J-curve is presented below in Figure 1.
Figure 1: J-curve, demonstrating the gap between expectations and reality
The basic argument is that persistent growth and improvement leads people to develop psychological expectations that things will continue to get better. When such expectations are suddenly thwarted, people experience an intolerable gap between expectations and realities of their circumstances. Essentially, this explains how individuals decide to riot or rebel based on a set of “psychological ideas”--if there is a gap between their psychological expectations and environmental reality, and this frustration is not addressed, they will respond with aggression.
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[question] => What is a possible explanation as to why the world population stabilized at 10 billion people?
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[answer] => 3
[description] => Reason for Correct Answer:
In developed countries, many families will only have one or two children. It is expensive to raise children because they are usually required to attend school instead of being able to help support the family
Some cities are redeveloping run-down neighborhoods with well thought out designs to maximize space, convenience, and aesthetics in what is called “smart growth.”
As countries develop, many adults decide to focus on their careers rather than on having children
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[answers] => Array
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[0] => Array
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[each_answer] => A. Agricultural technology improved such that world hunger was abolished
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[1] => Array
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[each_answer] => B. There was a world wide pandemic, resulting in sterility
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[2] => Array
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[each_answer] => C. Many people no longer wanted to have families and instead focused on their jobs
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[each_answer] => D. There was no more land available for people to live, so governments put a cap on the population
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[1] => Array
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[quiz_unique_key] => 1403770772
[question] => The “gap between what one has and what one expects”, particularly in comparison to some specific reference group is called:
[value] => Array
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[answer] => 4
[description] => Reason for Correct Answer:
This model aims to explain individuals’ decisions to join or start social movements and is based on a certain set of psychological ideas.
Relative deprivation has been used as the mechanism to explain the frustration that emerges in society.
Relative deprivation itself refers to the gap between what one has and what one expects, particularly in comparison to some specific reference group in society.
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[answers] => Array
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[0] => Array
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[each_answer] => A. Social stratification
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[1] => Array
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[each_answer] => B. Conflict theory
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[each_answer] => C. Breakdown theory
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[each_answer] => D. Relative deprivation
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[quiz_unique_key] => 1403770772
[question] => What is a possible method to maintain a stable population size?
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[answer] => 4
[description] => Reason for Correct Answer:
The world population depends only on the number of births and deaths
If two parents have only two children, they will exactly replace themselves when they die so that the population remains the same. If two parents have one child, the population will decrease. If two parents have three or more children, the population will increase
According to Malthusians, in the future, low birth rates and low death rates will balance each other out so that the world population stabilizes
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[answers] => Array
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[0] => Array
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[each_answer] => A. The number of people moving into countries is the exact number of people moving out of countries, making the net migration rate 0
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[1] => Array
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[each_answer] => B. People are living longer and are able to contribute to the society longer, removing the burden from families and the government
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[each_answer] => C. Families only have one child, which balances the very low death rates
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[each_answer] => D. Birth rates and death rates are low and balance each other out with each family only having two children
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[quiz_unique_key] => 1403770772
[question] => In order to experience relative deprivation, an individual must experience desire, feel like he or she has the right to gain access to resources, and experience a perception that the likelihood of access being blocked is high. The contradiction between this feeling of entitlement and this feeling of stymied progress is a type of:
[value] => Array
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[answer] => 4
[description] => Reason for Correct Answer:
This concept focuses on how humans strive for internal consistency.
When inconsistency (dissonance) is experienced, individuals tend to become psychologically uncomfortable and are motivated to attempt to reduce this dissonance.
The contradiction between this feeling of entitlement and this feeling of stymied progress is a type of internal inconsistency or cognitive dissonance a person feels.
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[each_answer] => A. Progressive deprivation
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[each_answer] => B. Cluster theory
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[each_answer] => C. Social stratification
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[each_answer] => D. Cognitive dissonance
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[quiz_unique_key] => 1403770772
[question] => What would be the best way to determine how the demographic structure of this hypothetical world has changed over the past 100 years?
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[answer] => 1
[description] => Reason for Correct Answer:
Most countries keep a record, like the Census, of the demographics of its population, which can be combined to get a sense of the world demographics
While not completely accurate, data from surveys like the Census are a good way of obtaining a general perspective of the makeup of a country
Demographic trends from previous years can be observed by graphing statistical data recorded over the past 100+ years
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[answers] => Array
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[0] => Array
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[each_answer] => A. Compare world population statistics from the past 100 years
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[1] => Array
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[each_answer] => B. Take only the current demographic statistics and extrapolate data for the previous 100 years
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[2] => Array
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[each_answer] => C. Take demographic statistics from the past 100 years from one country and use it as a model for the world population
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[each_answer] => D. Take a poll of universities around the world to compare to demographic data from the past 100 years
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