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ABSTRACT. The theory of formal disciplinenthat is, the view that instruction in abstract rule systems can affect reasoning about everyday-life eventsnhas been rejected by 20th century psychologists on the basis of rather scant evidence. We examined the effects of graduate training in law, medicine, psychology, and chemistry on statistical reasoning, methodological reasoning aboutconfounded variables, and reasoning about problems in the logic of the conditional Both psychology and medical training produced large effects on statistical and methodological reasoning, and psychology, medical, and law training pro-duced effects on ability to reason about problems in the logic of the conditional Chemistry training had no effect on any type of reasoning studied. These results eem well understood in terms of the rule systems taught by the
Lehman et al. (Wed,) studied this question.