Henry Markovits

University of Quebec in Montreal | UQAM · Department of Psychology

Theoretical analyses and studies with children suggest that females are more likely than males to respond to threats of social exclusion with exclusion. Here we present a series of studies using a modified version of a computerized competitive game that participants play against two fictitious opponents. In previous studies, females and males have...

Conditional (if-then) reasoning is one of the key components of logical reasoning. Studies examining the way that children and adults make conditional inferences have shown that while there are some clear developmental patterns, there is also a great deal of variation in performance due to factors such as problem content. Such variation is difficul...

The dual-strategy model of reasoning suggests that when people reason they can either use (a) a statistical strategy which generates an estimation of conclusion likelihood using a rapid form of associative processing or (b) a counterexample strategy which identifies potential counterexamples to a conclusion using a more conscious working memory int...

Mental model (Johnson-Laird, 2001) and probabilistic theories (Oaksford & Chater, 2009) claim to provide distinct explanations of human reasoning. However, the dual strategy model of reasoning suggests that this distinction corresponds to different reasoning strategies, termed counterexample and statistical, respectively. There is clear evidence th...

There is little consensus about the underlying parameters of human reasoning. Two major theories have been proposed that suppose very different mechanisms. The mental model theory proposes that people use working memory intensive processes in order to construct limited models of problem parameters. Probabilistic theories propose that reasoning is a...

Every human and non-human animal must make tradeoffs in investments in terms of time, energy, and resources. The aim of this study was to extrapolate from the types of investments in survival and reproduction that non-human animals make and translate these into human motivations. 16 potential goals were presented to 851 childless, 18–23-year-old ad...

Every human and non-animal must make tradeoffs in investments in terms of time, energy, and resources. The aim of this study was to extrapolate from the types of investments in survival and mating that non-human animals make and translate these into human motivations. 16 potential goals were presented to 851 childless, 18-23-year-old adults from 11...

Research has shown that repeating a claim increases belief in it and makes it more difficult to correct. This is referred to as the illusory truth effect. Previous studies have mostly examined the illusory truth effect in a verbatim paradigm, that is, when information is repeated word-for-word. In the present study, we looked at the difference betw...

The belief bias effect designates the tendency to judge the validity of a conclusion based on its believability. Most studies have compared highly believable with unbelievable conclusions when examining belief-biased reasoning. In two studies, we examine a hypothesis raised by Banks (2013, Cognitive Science, 37[3], 544–577), who postulated that lev...

Base rate neglect refers to the well-documented tendency for people to primarily rely on diagnostic information to identify event probabilities while discounting information about relative probabilities (base rates). It is often postulated that using base rate information requires some form of working memory intensive processes. However, recent stu...

Human males are considered to be more competitive than females. However, females must also compete for resources necessary for their own and their offsprings’ survival. Since females use more indirect forms of competition than males, comparing observable forms of competition may be misleading. One critical driver of competition is resource asymmetr...

Direct contests occur more frequently between men than between women. This produces the conclusion that men are more competitive than women. However, no sex differences have been found in other more indirect competitive tactics such as self-promotion and reputation derogation. Qualitative evidence further suggests that one competitive tactic, level...

The Dual strategy model suggests that people can either use a Statistical or a Counterexample reasoning strategy, which reflects two qualitatively different way of processing information. This model has been shown to capture individual differences in a wide array of tasks, such as contingency learning. Here, we examined whether this extends to indi...

The Dual strategy model of reasoning, which distinguishes between Counterexample and Statistical strategies, predicts performance on a variety of forms of reasoning and judgment. At least part of the distinction between reasoning strategies has been shown to be attentional, suggesting that strategy use should be a strong predictor of the ability to...

This article examines both the development of reasoning and individual differences in the way that people reason. The development of if-then reasoning is examined in detail, with an emphasis on the existence of multiple developmental levels. The primary role of the generation of implicit information in the ability to reason logically is described,...

Prior knowledge has been shown to be an important factor in causal judgments. However, inconsistent patterns have been reported regarding the interaction between prior knowledge and the processing of contingency information. In three studies, we examined the effect of the plausibility of the putative cause on causal judgments, when prior expectatio...

When people reason, they do so in a way that suggests they are thinking beyond the premises and actively using background knowledge. This study explored the hypothesis that divergent thinking, a key component of creativity, is a unique predictive factor of logical reasoning. A total of 96 adults completed a divergent thinking task and logical reaso...

The first reference on rationality that integrates accounts from psychology and philosophy, covering descriptive and normative theories from both disciplines. Both analytic philosophy and cognitive psychology have made dramatic advances in understanding rationality, but there has been little interaction between the disciplines. This volume offers t...

The dual strategy model posits that reasoners rely on two information processing strategies when making inferences: The statistical strategy generates a rapid probabilistic estimate based on associative access to a wide array of information, and the counterexample strategy uses a more focused representation allowing for a search for potential count...

The dual-strategy model of reasoning proposes that people tend to use one of two reasoning strategies: either a statistical or a counterexample strategy, with the latter being more sensitive to potential counterexamples to a given conclusion. Previous studies have examined the effects of reasoning strategy in a variety of contexts. In the present s...

Hundreds of studies find that girls and women report feeling greater empathy than boys and men in response to adverse events befalling others. Despite this, few non-self-report measures demonstrate similar sex differences. This produces the oft-cited conclusion that to conform to societal expectations of appropriate sex-typed behavior females repor...

The dual strategy model of reasoning suggests that people can either use a Statistical or a Counterexample strategy to process information. Previous studies on contingency learning have shown a sufficiency bias: people give more importance to events where the potential cause is present (sufficiency) rather than events where the potential cause is a...

Logical reasoning is the ability to distinguish between possible and necessary conclusions. It is a vital component of mathematical and scientific reasoning, and it is also important for navigating the complexities of social and political life. This makes understanding how logical reasoning develops critically important both for theoretical and edu...

A research link between conditional reasoning and mathematics has been reported only for late adolescents and adults, despite claims about the pivotal importance of conditional reasoning, i.e., reasoning with if–then statements, in mathematics. Secondary students’ problems with deductive reasoning in mathematics have been documented for a long time...

The dual strategy model proposes that people use one of two potential ways of processing information when making inferences. The statistical strategy generates a rapid probabilistic estimate based on associative access to a wide array of information, while the counterexample strategy uses a more focused representation, allowing for a search for pot...

Growing evidence supports the dual-strategy model, which suggests that reasoners have access to both a statistical and a counterexample reasoning strategy. In this paper, we explore further the processes underlying strategy use. We report three studies, the aim of which was to clarify the relation between this model and two forms of everyday reason...

A common explanation for individual differences in the ability to draw rule-based inferences, when a putative conclusion suggests a competing belief-based inference, is that the ability to do so depends on working memory capacity. In the following studies, we examined the hypothesis that the ability to draw rule-based inferences in belief bias task...

The dual-strategy model of reasoning has proposed that individual differences in reasoning can be understood as due to two general ways of processing information: an analytic, counterexample strategy that examines information for explicit potential counterexamples and an intuitive, statistical strategy that uses associative access to generate a lik...

This study explored the hypothesis that preschoolers’ deductive reasoning would be improved by encouraging use of divergent thinking (DT). Children of 4–5 years of age (n = 120) were randomly given DT or neutral control exercises before deductive reasoning problems. To allow a stronger test of the hypothesis, half of the children receiving the DT e...

Dual process theories postulate the existence of two levels of processing, Type 1, which uses belief-based cues to make very rapid inferences, and Type 2, which uses more conscious, working memory-based processes that are, in principle, capable of making rule-based judgments. There is a common assumption that Type 1 processes are more rapidly produ...

Long-term cooperation between individuals necessitates repairing damage arising from inevitable competing interests. How two members of a valuable relationship switch from competing to cooperating constitutes an important problem for any social species. Observations of non-human animals suggest that affiliative contact immediately following a conte...

Empirical evidence for the capacity to detect conflict between biased reasoning and normative principles has led to the proposal that reasoners have an intuitive grasp of some basic logical principles. In two studies, we investigate the boundary conditions of these logical intuitions by manipulating the logical complexity of problems where logical...

Across species, cooperative alliances must withstand internal tensions. The mechanisms by which allies respond to competing against one another have been studied extensively in non-human animals, but much less so in humans. In non-human species, affiliative physical contact and close proximity immediately following a contest are utilized to define...

The idea that inferential performance cannot be analyzed within a single model has been suggested within two theoretical contexts. The dual strategy model suggests that people reason using different approaches to processing statistical information. The dual-source model suggests that people reason probabilistically using both statistical informatio...

Studies examining the interpretation that is given to if–then statementstypically use what are referred to as basic conditionals, which give contextless relations between two unrelated concrete terms (If the ball is blue, then the shape is square). However, there is some evidence that basic conditionals require a more abstract form of representatio...

In the present studies, we investigated inferences from an incompatibility statement. Starting with two propositions that cannot be true at the same time, these inferences consist of deducing the falsity of one from the truth of the other or deducing the truth of one from the falsity of the other. Inferences of this latter form are relevant to huma...

Studies on human cooperation using economic games rarely include ecologically relevant factors. In studies on non-human primates however, both status and sex typically influence patterns of cooperation. Across primate species, high status individuals are more likely to cooperate, though this depends on the species-specific social structure of each...

The dual strategy model of reasoning has proposed that people's reasoning can be understood asa combination of two different ways of processing information related to problem premises: a counterexample strategy that examines information for explicit potential counterexamples and a statistical strategy that uses associative access to generate a like...

The dual strategy model of reasoning proposed by Verschueren, Schaeken, and d'Ydewalle (Thinking & Reasoning, 11(3), 239-278, 2005a; Memory & Cognition, 33(1), 107-119, 2005b) suggests that people can use either a statistical or a counterexample-based strategy to make deductive inferences. Subsequent studies have supported this distinction and inve...

Understanding the development of conditional (if-then) reasoning is critical for theoretical and educational reasons. Previous results have shown that there is a clear qualitative transition between reasoning with true causal conditionals and reasoning with either with contrary-to-fact and fully abstract premises. We examine the further idea that t...

Subliminal induction of a feeling of power influences men and women differently in the distribution of monetary gains with same-sex partners : men tended to be more generous with their lower status peers than women were.

There is little consensus about the nature of logical reasoning and, equally important, about how it develops. To address this, we looked at the early origins of deductive reasoning in preschool children. We examined the contribution of two factors to the reasoning ability of very young children: inhibitory capacity and the capacity to generate alt...

Both empirical data and theoretical approaches suggest that argumentation is an important component of development of reasoning skills. We argue that if argumentation does have a primary role, then children should be able to distinguish more from less logical justifications even when they are incapable of determining the correct conclusion by thems...

One of the major debates concerning the nature of inferential reasoning is between counterexample-based strategies such as mental model theory and statistical strategies underlying probabilistic models. The dual-strategy model, proposed by Verschueren, Schaeken, & d'Ydewalle (2005a, 2005b), which suggests that people might have access to both kinds...

Studies examining children's basic understanding of conditionals have led to very different conclusions. On the one hand, conditional inference tasks suggest that young children are able to interpret familiar conditionals in a complex manner. In contrast, truth-table tasks suggest that before adolescence, children have limited (conjunctive) represe...

Experimental study on helping behavior between 5 to 7 years old peers

One of the major debates concerning the nature of inferential reasoning is between counterexample-based strategies such as mental model theory and the statistical strategies underlying probabilistic models. The dual-strategy model proposed by Verschueren, Schaeken, and d'Ydewalle (2005a, 2005b) suggests that people might have access to both kinds o...

Many forms of judgments, such as those used in economic games or measures of social comparison, require understanding relative value, as well as the more complex ability to make comparisons between relative values. To examine whether young children can accurately compare relative values, we presented children 4 to 7 years with simple judgments of r...

One of the major debates concerning the nature of inferential reasoning is between counterexample-based theories such as mental model theory and probabilistic theories. This study looks at conclusion updating after the addition of statistical information to examine the hypothesis that deductive reasoning cannot be explained by probabilistic inferen...

The nature of people's meta-representations of deductive reasoning is critical to understanding how people control their own reasoning processes. We conducted two studies to examine whether people have a metacognitive representation of abstract validity and whether familiarity alone acts as a separate metacognitive cue. In Study 1, participants wer...

Three studies examine the influence of varying the difficulty of reasoning on the extent of belief bias, while minimising the possibility that the manipulation would influence the way participants approach the task. Specifically, reasoning difficulty was manipulated by making variations in problem content, while maintaining all other aspects of the...

The question of whether reasoning can, or should, be described by a single normative model is an important one. In the following, I combine epistemological considerations taken from Piaget’s notion of genetic epistemology, a hypothesis about the role of reasoning in communication and developmental data to argue that some basic logical principles ar...

Unrelated human males regularly interact in groups [1], which can include higher and lower ranked individuals. In contrast, from early childhood through adulthood, females often reduce group size in order to interact with only one individual of equal rank [1-5]. In many species, when either sex maintains a group structure, unrelated individuals mus...

Physical aggression appears to have a much stronger effect on behavior than its overt frequency of occurrence would suggest. Studies examining effects of observing aggressive behavior and others looking at cognitive differences related to aggressive behavior suggest that physical aggression might be processed preferentially by the cognitive system....

Theoretical models based on primate evidence suggest that social structure determines the costs and benefits of particular aggressive strategies. In humans, males more than females interact in groups of unrelated same-sex peers, and larger group size predicts success in inter-group contests. In marked contrast, human females form isolated one-on-on...

In 2 experiments, we tested a strong version of a dual process theory of conditional inference (cf. Verschueren et al., 2005a, 2005b) that assumes that most reasoners have 2 strategies available, the choice of which is determined by situational variables, cognitive capacity, and metacognitive control. The statistical strategy evaluates inferences p...

Divergent thinking is a component of creativity. In the following study, we argue that this form of thinking also underlies logical reasoning. A total of 205 early elementary school children in Grades 1 and 2, from high and moderately low SES environments, were given a short-term prime for divergent thinking and simple reasoning problems. Overall,...

A key assumption of Mental Model theory ( Johnson-Laird & Byrne, 1991 , 2002 ) is that reasoners should use a minimal representation of the premises, called the initial model, in order to reduce the cognitive load involved in the processing of more than one model. However, there is no direct evidence for this postulate. In the following studies, we...

Many studies have shown that the deductive inferences that people make have global properties that reflect the statistical information implicit in the premises. This suggests that such reasoning can be explained by a single, underlying probabilistic model. In contrast, the dual process model of conditional reasoning (Verschueren, Schaeken, & d'Ydew...

Abstract reasoning refers to the ability to reason logically with premises that do not allow reference to knowledge about the real world. This form of reasoning is complex and difficult, and at the same time, it is critical for understanding science and mathematics. Two studies examined the use of analogy as a method to bridge reasoning with famili...

Previous studies (Dias & Harris, 1988, 1990; Markovits & Vachon, 1989) have established that young children can correctly respond to certain conditional reasoning problems with empirically false premises, when these are presented in a fantasy context. Such results have been interpreted as indicating that young children possess logical reasoning com...

Background. It is now widely recognised that student's self-perceptions of competence have an effect on their behaviours and learning. Previous studies have shown that children only gradually develop the ability to evaluate accurately their own competence. One possible explanation for this is that younger children have not reached a level of cognit...

Two groups of university students were given paper-and-pencil conditional reasoning tests. One group received problems based on a simple pr̊q relation, while for the second this relation was embedded in a paragraph describing other relations of the form ar̊q. Results showed that overall performance was better for the second group, confirming previo...

This study attempted to test the hypothesis that formal reasoning on conditional logic problems of the form pr̊q is mediated by awareness of the existence and pertinence of possible relations of the form ar̊q. A paper-and-pencil test consisting of three conditional reasoning problems and a fourth question designed to measure subjects' awareness of...

Abstract reasoning is critical for science and mathematics, but is very difficult. In 3 studies, the hypothesis that alternatives generation required for conditional reasoning with false premises facilitates abstract reasoning is examined. Study 1 (n = 372) found that reasoning with false premises improved abstract reasoning in 12- to 15-year-olds....

Research indicates that human males interact in groups, whereas females form one-on-one relationships. Whereas females excel in understanding intimate verbally-mediated social information, we hypothesized that males would be more sensitive to the spatial positions of friends within a group. In Study 1, we demonstrate that after a very brief exposur...

The development of children's use of two social rules concerning learning to share with peers was examined in two studies. Past research on children's cognitive reasoning suggests that with increasing age, children are less self-centred and more willing to share with others. At the same time, research with adolescents and adults indicates that the...

A total of 152 students were asked to respond to a series of causal conditional (“If P then Q”) inferences with major premises for which there was variable access to information contradicting the premises. Half the students were given 12.5 s for each inference, the other half were given 8.5 s. The percentage of accepted inferences was significantly...

Geiger and Oberauer (2007) found that when asked to reason with conditionals, people are very sensitive to information about the relative frequency of exceptions to conditional rules and quite insensitive to the relative number of disabling conditions. They asked participants to rate their degree of certainty in a conclusion. In the following studi...

This chapter presents a multinomial process tree model for conditional reasoning, based on Markovits and Barrouillet's (2002) developmental theory of conditional reasoning. This model assumes that reasoners produce inferences from a set of mental models, in which the basic elements are determined directly by the kind of information about the premis...

Sexual selection theory predicts that additional resources will have a greater impact on males' compared with females' reproductive success. Consequently, we expected that strong cues signalling increased resource availability should augment cognitive functioning associated with long-term maximization of reproductive outcomes (inhibition, working m...

This study examined conditional reasoning with premises referring to associations between professions and traits that were either stereotypical (“Accountants like mathematics”) or counter-stereotypical (“Nurses like mathematics”). In the first study, participants were asked to rate the degree of certainty of MP and AC inferences based on an individ...

The authors examined internal representations of conditional strategies for a situation of object conflict in 849 adolescents and young adults between the ages of 11 and 19 years. To examine participants' expectations of strategy use, the authors developed questionnaires that depicted a variety of contexts in which 2 people wanted an object that co...

Coalitions enhance survival and reproductive success in many social species, yet they generate contradictory impulses. Whereas a coalition increases the probability of successfully obtaining rewards for its members, it typically requires a division of rewards among members, thereby diminishing individual benefits. Non-human primate data indicate th...

Three studies were conducted to examine the often-cited conclusion that human females are more sociable than males. Using perceptions of roommates, roommate changes at three collegiate institutions, and an experimental manipulation of friendship beliefs, the studies demonstrated unequivocally that males exhibit a higher threshold of tolerance for g...

Two studies examined the hypothesis that accepting false premises as true in order to make the modus ponens (MP) inference requires inhibition of contradictory knowledge. Study 1 presented both MP and affirmation of the consequent (AC) inferences using either false, but plausible premises or completely unbelievable premises, with standard logical c...

In three studies, we examined simple counterexample-based and probabilistic reasoning in children 6, 7, and 9 years of age. In the first study, participants were asked to make conditional (if-then) inferences under both categorical (certain or uncertain) and probabilistic instructions. Results showed that 6-year-olds respond to both forms of infere...

The present article examines 2 predictions concerning conditional reasoning in children derived from a revised version of Markovits's model of conditional reasoning. The first study examined the prediction that younger children (8 years of age) would have greater difficulty in responding correctly to premises where the antecedent was strongly assoc...

This study examined the idea that expectations of behavior in hypothetical situations involving potential moral transgressions are related to emotion attributions relating to both moral and cost-benefit considerations. We asked younger (14 years 5 months) and older (16 years 1 month) female and male adolescents (a) to make predictions about the pro...

The current research examined the hypothesis that males derive greater benefits than females do from cooperation with same-sex peers versus parents. In Study 1, 194 children, early adolescents, older adolescents, and adults from Brussels, Belgium predicted whether parents or same-sex peers would provide more benefits to a typical individual of thei...

Social organization of a species influences myriad facets of individuals' behavior. Much research indicates that human social organization consists of males in large groups and females in smaller groups or interacting with individuals. This study analyzed the initial factors that produce greater preferences for groups by human male versus female in...

Byrne's book makes a strong case for the important role of imagination as a creator of possibilities that are used to understand complex relations, while remaining rational. I suggest that imagination also serves a critical developmental role by creating possibilities that are not rational, and that act to modify the nature of the cognitive process...

The extent to which belief revision is affected by systematic variability and direct experience of a conditional (if A then B) relation was examined in two studies. The first used a computer generated apparatus. This presented two rows of 5 objects. Pressing one of the top objects resulted in one of the bottom objects being lit up. The 139 adult pa...

Many studies have shown that inferential behavior is strongly affected by access to real-life information about premises. However, it is also true that both children and adults can often make logically appropriate inferences that lead to empirically unbelievable conclusions. One way of reconciling these is to suppose that logical instructions allow...

Previous research has shown that women and men’s different interactional contexts result in selective differences in retention of information (e.g., Gabriel & Gardner, 1999). This study tested the hypothesis that there should be broad gender-related differences in latencies of retrieval of information focused on groups or dyads, with women processi...

Conditional (if-then) reasoning occupies a central place in the study of logical reasoning. Reasoning with conditionals is a part of everyday thinking (e.g. Scholnick & Wing, 1991) and is important to activities such as reading (Lea et al., 1990). In addition, the ability to make ‘if-then’ inferences that are hypothetical and logical underlies much...

Oaksford, Chater, and Larkin (2000) have suggested that people actually use everyday probabilistic reasoning when making deductive inferences. In two studies, we explicitly compared probabilistic and deductive reasoning with identical if-then conditional premises with concrete content. In the first, adults were given causal premises with one strong...

The extent to which belief revision is affected by a process of self-construction of a conditional (if P then Q) relation was examined using a computer generated system. Some participants were told that it was always true that if P then Q, while others were allowed to explore the system in order to self-construct this same relation to a high degree...

According to many models of conditional reasoning, correct responses to the uncertain forms affirmation of consequent (AC) and denial of antecedent (DA) rely on the retrieval of an alternative antecedent from semantic memory. The main prediction issuing from this hypothesis of online retrieval is that the associative strength of the relevant inform...

In this study, we looked at the contributions of individual differences in susceptibility to interference and working memory to logical reasoning with premises that were empirically false (i.e., not necessarily true). A total of 97 university students were given a sentence completion task for which a subset of stimuli was designed to generate inapp...

Past research with common chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes, and cross-cultural data with human beings suggest that relative to females, males prefer group over individual interaction. The present study tested whether this sex difference would be found in 6–8-month-old human infants using a preferential looking paradigm. Results showed that relative to...

Discusses this special issue of Thinking & Reasoning which focuses on the development of reasoning, with contributions from several distinguished developmental researchers. Although there is a long tradition of developmental work on reasoning, there has been a marked decrease in such studies recently. Both this fact and the reasons for it constitut...