then interprets more sweat as more stress. this is a fallacy as the fact that stressed people tend to sweat does NOT imply that sweaty people tend to be stressed
It’s close enough to convince people. If there were no correlation between sweatiness and stress, the E-meter wouldn’t be a convincing recruiting tool. If it always just went to “stressed” no matter who used it or how, it wouldn’t be as convincing either. The fact that sweatiness and stress are somewhat correlated means that it can be used to bring people into the cult.