6.89 Online chat rooms allow people from all over the world to exchange opinions on various topics of interest.

A side effect of such conversations is “flaming,”

which is negative criticism of others’ contributions to the conversation. The paper “Criticism on the Internet:

An Analysis of Participant Reactions” (Communication Research Reports [1998]: 180–187) investigated the effect that personal criticism has on an individual.

Data from a survey of 193 chat room users from this study are summarized here:

Have Been Personally Criticized Have Not Been Personally Criticized Total Have Criticized Others 19 8 27 Have Not Criticized Others 23 143 166 Total 42 151 193 Assume that this data is representative of the larger group of all chat room users and that the frequencies in the table are indicative of the long-run behavior of chat room users. Suppose that a chat room user is selected at random, and define events C 5 event that the selected individual has criticized others O 5 event that the selected individual has been personally criticized by others Find and interpret each of the following probabilities:

a. PsCd

b. PsOd

c. PsC > Od

d. PsCuOd

e. PsOuCd