A report suggests that among Americans, the average number of close friends people report having is just two. You can read an msnbc report of the study here.
The study reports that the researchers
...surveyed more than 2,000 adults ages 18 and older from the nationally representative Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences (TESS) program. The Internet surveys were conducted between April 23 and May 5, 2010.
The story also reports that people were
...asked to list the names of people they had discussed "important matters" with over the previous six months. If respondents said "none," they asked whether this was because they didn't have any important matters to discuss or no one with whom to discuss them in the past six months.About 48 percent of participants listed one name, 18 percent listed two, and roughly 29 percent listed more than two names for these close friends.
The average number of confidants listed was 2.03, the story reports.
a.) The headline of the study was, "You gotta have friends? Most have just 2 true pals." What kind of claim is made in this headline?
b.) Which two validities do we prioritize when evaluating this kind of claim?
c.) Based on the information from the article quoted above, how well does the study fulfill these two validities?
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