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I only skimmed the article, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the article mistake correlation for causation big time? Students were asked to choose a topic, what if students who choose to write about values just don't care about other people's opinion, and thus perform better at it?

What evidence is there to point to a causal relationship?

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The students were assigned to one of two groups. Each group was given the same list of values. One group was asked to write about the one most important to them. The other group (the control group) was asked to write about the least important one to them and why someone else might find it important.

They were asked to choose a value, not a topic.

Ah, thanks for the clarification. The wording makes it sound like they got to choose both.

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