Prof. Dr. Dr. Niels Skovgaard-Olsen
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I study reasoning and norms using both philosophical theories and experimental psychological methods. My work explores, e.g., how people navigate conflicting norms, make decisions, reason probabilistically and logically, and how they draw causal inferences. I aim to bridge theoretical and empirical approaches to understanding human rationality.
Research Interests
Empirical and theoretical rationality research (psychology, philosophy). Pragmatics and Semantics (linguistics). Psychology of Reasoning. Empirical and theoretical research on norms and agency. Moral Psychology. Psychology of Causality. Computational methods and statistical modelling.
Experience
2026- apl. Professor (außerplanmäßiger Professor) of Psychology, Faculty of Ecnomics and Behavioral Sciences, University of Freiburg.
2025 Hesenberg Position (DFG). PI of research project.
2023-2026 Privatdozent. Department of Social Psychology and Methodology. Institute of Psychology. University of Freiburg.
2023 Habilitation, venia legendi in Psychology ("right to teach"). University of Freiburg.
2022- PI of research project “Norm Conflicts and Rationality”. German Research Council (DFG). Department of Social Psychology and Methodology. Institute of Psychology. University of Freiburg. https://freidok.uni-freiburg.de/proj/9901
2017-2022 PostDoc Research Associate with teaching and supervision duties. Department of Cognitive and Decision Psychology. Institute of Psychology. University of Göttingen.
2014-2017 PostDoc. DFG Project: Reason Relations, Argumentation, and Conditionals: Applying Ranking Theory to Psychology of Reasoning.
2014-2017 Dr. rer. nat. (PhD in psychology), Faculty of Economics and Behavioral Sciences, University of Freiburg. Institute of Psychology. Supervisor: Professor Dr. Karl Christoph Klauer. Dissertation defended with summa cum laude (“highest honour”).
2012-2014 Dr. phil. (PhD in philosophy), Faculty of Humanities, University of Konstanz. Supervisor: Professor Dr. Wolfgang Spohn. Dissertation defended with summa cum laude (“highest honour”).
Publications
Skovgaard-Olsen, N. (2026). Normative Problems in the Psychology of Reasoning: Deductive Constraints on Bayesian Rationality and the Problem of Arbitration. Philosophical Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2026.2711818
Skovgaard-Olsen, N. and Klauer, K. C. (2026). Comment on: Probabilities of Conditionals: The relevance effect might be confounded by the existence of boundary cases (2025) by Zhan and Wang. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 33(115). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-026-02889-5
Skovgaard-Olsen, N. and Klauer, K. C. (2026). Norm Conflicts and Morality: The Conflict Model of Moral Decision-Making. Judgment & Decision Making, 21:e7. https://doi.org/10.1017/jdm.2026.10030
Skovgaard-Olsen, N. (2026). Causal Markov Violations and Hidden Mechanisms. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0001597
Baron, J. and Skovgaard-Olsen, N. (2025). Comment on: Rokosz et al. (2025). Yes, many heads really are more utilitarian than one. Cognition, 271, 106296. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106296
Skovgaard-Olsen, N. and Klauer, K. C. (2024). Invariance Violations and the CNI Model of Moral Judgment. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 50(9), 1348-1367. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672231164888
Skovgaard-Olsen, N. and John Cantwell (2023). Norm Conflicts and Epistemic Modals. Cognitive Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2023.101591
Skovgaard-Olsen, N. Collins, P., and Klauer, K. C. (2023). Possible Worlds Truth Table Task. Cognition, 238, 105507. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105507
Skovgaard-Olsen, N. and Klauer, K. C. (2023). Invariance Violations and the CNI Model of Moral Judgment. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 10.1177/01461672231164888
Skovgaard-Olsen, N. and Collins, P. (2021). Indicatives, Subjunctives, and the Falsity of the Antecedent. Cognitive Science, 45(11).https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.13058
Skovgaard-Olsen, N., Stephan, S., and Waldmann, M. (2021). Conditionals and the Hierarchy of Causal Queries. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 150(12), 2472-2505. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001062
Kern-Isberner, G., Skovgaard-Olsen, N., and Spohn, W. (2021). Ranking Theory and Cognitive Science. In: Knauff, M. & Spohn, W. (eds.), Handbook of Rationality (pp. 337-345). The MIT Press. https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262045070/the-handbook-of-rationality/
Skovgaard-Olsen, N. (2020). Relevance and Conditionals: A Synopsis of Open Pragmatic and Semantic Issues. In: Elqayam, S., Douven, I., Cruz, N., Evans, J. (eds.), Logic and Uncertainty in the Human Mind, Routledge (pp. 192-206). https://www.routledge.com/Logic-and-Uncertainty-in-the-Human-Mind-A-Tribute-to-David-E-Over/Elqayam-Douven-Evans-Cruz/p/book/9781138084254
Skovgaard-Olsen, N. (2019). The Dialogical Entailment Task. Cognition, 193. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2019.104010
Skovgaard-Olsen, N., Kellen, D., Hahn, U., and Klauer, K. C. (2019). Norm Conflicts and Conditionals. Psychological Review, 126(5), 611-633. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000150
Skovgaard-Olsen, N., Collins, P., Krzyzanowska, K., Hahn, U., and Klauer, C. K. (2019). Cancellation, Negation, and Rejection. Cognitive Psychology, 108, 42-71.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2018.11.002
Skovgaard-Olsen, N., Kellen, D., Krahl, H., and Klauer, K. C. (2017). Relevance differently affects the truth, acceptability, and probability evaluations of ‘And’, ‘But’, ‘Therefore’, and ‘If Then’. Thinking and Reasoning, 23(4), 449-482. https://doi.org/10.1080/13546783.2017.1374306
Skovgaard-Olsen, N., Kellen, D., Hahn, U., and Klauer, K. C. (2017). Conditionals, Individual Variation, and the Scorekeeping Task. In: M. Gunzelmann, A. Howes, T. Tenbrink, & E. Davelaar (Eds.), Proceedings of the 39th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. London, UK: Cognitive Science Society. https://www.proceedings.com/35829.html
Skovgaard-Olsen, N., Singmann, H., and Klauer, K. C. (2017). Relevance and Reason Relations. Cognitive Science, 41(S5), 1202-1215. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12462
Raidl, E. and Skovgaard-Olsen, N. (2016). Bridging Ranking Theory and the Stability Theory of Belief. Journal of Philosophical Logic, 46(6), 577-609. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10992-016-9411-0
Skovgaard-Olsen, N. (2016). Motivating the Relevance Approach to Conditionals. Mind & Language, 31(5), 555-79.https://doi.org/10.1111/mila.12120
Skovgaard-Olsen, N., Singmann, H., and Klauer, K. C. (2016). The Relevance Effect and Conditionals. Cognition, 150, 26-36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2015.12.017
Skovgaard-Olsen, N. (2015a). Ranking Theory and Conditional Reasoning. Cognitive Science. 40(4), 848-880.https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12267
Skovgaard-Olsen, N. (2015b). The problem of logical Omniscience, the preface paradox, and doxastic commitments. Synthese, 194(3), 917-939.https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-015-0979-7
Skovgaard-Olsen, N. (2014). Logical Omniscience and Acknowledged vs. Consequential Commitments. In: Proceedings of AISB50. London, UK: Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behavior. http://doc.gold.ac.uk/aisb50/AISB50-S21/AISB50-S21-Olsen-paper.pdf
Olsen, N. S. (2014). Philosophical Theory-Construction and the Self-Image of Philosophy.
Open Journal of Philosophy. https://10.4236/ojpp.2014.43031
Olsen, N. S. (2010). Reinterpreting Sellars in the Light of Brandom, McDowell, and A. D. Smith. European Journal of Philosophy, 18(4), 510-38. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0378.2009.00360.x
In Review and Under Preparation
Skovgaard-Olsen, N. (in preparation). Norm Conflicts and Decision-Making under Risk and Ambiguity.
Dissertations
Skovgaard-Olsen, N. (2023). Reasoning Studies. From Single Norms to Individual Differences. (Habilitation in Psychology, University of Freiburg)
Skovgaard-Olsen, N. (2017). Putting Inferentialism and the Suppositional Theory of Conditionals to the Test. (Psychology Dissertation, University of Freiburg)
Olsen, N. S. (2014). Making Ranking Theory useful for Psychology of Reasoning. (Philosophy Dissertation, University of Konstanz)
For further details:
https://uni-freiburg.de/sozpsy/team/skovgaard-olsen/
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Niels-Skovgaard-Olsen
https://freidok.uni-freiburg.de/pers/98465