Lucas Butler

Lucas Butler's research program focuses on the development of children’s empirical reasoning. He investigates how and when children develop the empirical reasoning skills necessary to navigate this information-rich, complex world, and how this development is shaped and fostered by often subtle aspects of the social context in which it occurs. His research program comprises two interrelated lines of investigation. First, in much of his work, he has investigated how children engage in the empirical process themselves. This includes investigating what factors influence how children identify the specific learning opportunities presented in a given situation, how they use social cues to guide the process of making inductive inferences, and how this varies across contexts and domains. 

Complete Bio - College of Education

Research Interests: 

• Social cognition
• Cognitive development
• Development of empirical reasoning
• Developmental and educational approaches to fostering resilience to disinformation