Inferring Causal Relations by Analogy

Abstract

When two situations share a common pattern of relationships among their constituent elements, people often draw an analogy between a familiar source analog and a novel target analog. This chapter reviews major subprocesses of analogical reasoning and discusses how analogical inference is guided by causal relations. Psychological evidence suggests that analogical inference often involves constructing and then running a causal model. It also provides some examples of analogies and models that have been used as tools in science education to foster understanding of critical causal relations. A Bayesian theory of causal inference by analogy illuminates how causal knowledge, represented as causal models, can be integrated with analogical reasoning to yield inductive inferences.