Ori Friedman

Professor
Ori Friedman

BSc (Toronto), PhD (Boston College)

Contact information

CV

UWaterloo Child Cognition Lab home page

View my profile on Google Scholar or ResearchGate

I'm accepting graduate students for next Fall. If you're interested in working with me, feel free to get in touch at friedman@uwaterloo.ca

Research interests

I am interested in social cognition in children and adults, and many other topics. For example, my recent research has investigated how people understand thoughts, emotions, and actions; how they think about ownership, rights, and responsibilities; and how they think about fiction, pretense, and counterfactual possibilities.

Journal articles and chapters

  • Buckwalter, W. & Friedman, O. (in press). Robust evidence for knowledge attribution and luck: A comment on Hall et al. (2023). Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science.
  • Doan, T., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (in press). Up and down: Counterfactual closeness is robust to direction of comparison. Cognition and Emotion.
  • Howard, A., Sehl, C. G., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (in press). Sunk cost predictions as theory of mind. Judgment and Decision Making.
  • Mathy, F., Friedman, O., & Gauvrit, N. (in press). Can compression take place in working memory without a central contribution of long-term memory? Memory and Cognition. 
  • Pawsey, H., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (in press). Children use proximity and ability to infer distinct kinds of counterfactual closeness. Developmental Psychology.
  • Sehl, C. G., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (in press). Not just social networks: How people infer relations from mutual connections. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review.
  • Doan, T., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2024). Close counterfactuals and almost doing the impossible. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 31, 187-195.
  • Ho, V., Stonehouse, E. E., & Friedman, O. (2024). When children choose fantastical events in fiction. Developmental Psychology, 60, 1474-1481.
  • Sehl, C. G., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2024). Doing things efficiently: Testing an account of why simple explanations are satisfying. Cognitive Psychology, 154, 101692.
  • Sehl, C. G., Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (2024). Emotions before actions: When children see costs as causal. Cognition, 247, 105774.
  • Shtulman, A., Goulding, B., & Friedman, O. (2024). Improbable but possible: Training children to accept the possibility of unusual events. Developmental Psychology, 60, 17-27.
  • Tasimi, A. & Friedman, O. (2024). An adversarial collaboration on dirty money. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 15, 255-263.
  • Tipper, Z., Kim, T., & Friedman, O. (2024). Children (and many adults) use perceptual similarity to assess relative impossibility. Developmental Psychology, 60, 1775–1784.
  • Van de Vondervoort, J. W., Baaj, L., Turri, J., & Friedman, O. (2024). People accept breaks in the causal chain between crime and punishment. Memory and Cognition, 52, 1112-1124.
  • Doan, T., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2023). Two kinds of counterfactual closeness. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 152, 1787-1796.  
  • Doan, T., Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (2023). Calculated feelings: How children use probability to infer emotions. Open Mind, 7, 879–893.
  • Ericson, S. R., Denison, S., Turri, J., & Friedman, O. (2023). Probability and intentional action. Cognitive Psychology, 141, 101551.
  • Friedman, O. (2023). Ownership and willingness to compete for resources. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 46, e336.Commentary on Boyer (same issue).
  • Friedman, O. & Tasimi, A. (2023). The second-order problem of other minds. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 46, E31.Commentary on Clark & Fischer (same issue).
  • Goulding, B. W. & Friedman, O. (2023). Perceived similarity explains beliefs about possibility. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 152, 2830–2841. 
  • Sehl, C. G., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2023). Local or foreign? Flexibility in children’s preference for similar others. Developmental Psychology, 59, 2333–2341.
  • Sehl, C. G., Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (2023). The social network: How people infer relationships from mutual connections. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 152, 925-934.
  • Starmans, C. & Friedman, O. (2023). Why children believe they are owned. Open Mind, 7, 534-549.
  • Cleroux, A., Peck, J., & Friedman, O. (2022). Young children infer psychological ownership from stewardship. Developmental Psychology, 58, 671-679.
  • Doan, T., Stonehouse, E. E., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2022). The odds tell children what people favor. Developmental Psychology, 58, 1759-1766.
  • English, S. D., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2022). Expectations of how machines use individuating information and base-rates. Judgment and Decision Making, 17, 626-645.
  • Goulding, B. W., Stonehouse, E. E., & Friedman, O. (2022). Anchored in the present: Preschoolers more accurately infer their futures when confronted with their pasts. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 377, 20210344. 
  • Goulding, B. W., Stonehouse, E. E., & Friedman, O. (2022). Causal knowledge and children’s possibility judgments. Child Development, 93, 794-803.
  • Pesowski, M. L., Nancekivell, S. E., Tasimi, A., & Friedman, O. (2022). Ownership and value in childhood. Annual Review of Developmental Psychology, 4, 161-183.
  • Sehl, C. G., Tran, E., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2022). Novelty preferences depend on goals. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 29, 2293-2301.
  • Stonehouse, E. E., & Friedman, O. (2022). Attributing ownership to hold others accountable. Cognition, 225, 105106.
  • Stonehouse, E. E. & Friedman, O. (2022). Prominence, property, and inductive inference. Cognitive Development, 63, 101225.
  • Stonehouse, E. E., Huh, M., & Friedman, O. (2022). Easy or difficult? Children’s understanding of how supply and demand affect goal completion. Child Development, 93, e460-e467.
  • Białek, M., Muda, R., Fugelsang, J. A., Friedman, O. (2021). Disgust and moral judgment: Distinguishing between elicitors and feelings matters. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 12, 304-313.
  • Cleroux, A., & Friedman, O. (2021). Young children infer feelings of ownership from habitual use. Emotion, 21, 607–616.
  • Doan, T., Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (2021). Oh … so close! Children’s close counterfactual reasoning and emotion inferences. Developmental Psychology, 57, 678–688.
  • Doan, T., Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (2021). Toddlers and preschoolers understand that some preferences are more subjective than others. Child Development, 92, 853-861.
  • Dunk, R. J., Goulding, B. W., Fugelsang, J. A., & Friedman, O. (2021). Butt-dialing the devil: Evil agents are expected to disregard intentions behind requests. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 96, 104188.
  • Goulding, B. W. & Friedman, O. (2021). A similarity heuristic in children’s possibility judgments. Child Development, 92, 662-671.
  • Pesowski, M. L., Ho, V., & Friedman, O. (2021). Varieties of value: Children differentiate caring from liking. Cognitive Development, 59, 101069.
  • Phillips, J., Buckwalter, W., Cushman, F., Friedman, O., Martin, A., Turri, J., Santos, L., Knobe, J. (2021). Knowledge before belief, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 44, E140.
  • Phillips, J., Buckwalter, W., Cushman, F., Friedman, O., Martin, A., Turri, J., Santos, L., Knobe, J. (2021). Actual knowledge [Response to commentaries]. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 44, E177.
  • Sehl, C., Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (2021). Blind to bias? Young children do not anticipate that sunk costs lead to irrational choices. Cognitive Science, 45, e13063.
  • Stonehouse, E. E. & Friedman, O. (2021). Unsolicited but acceptable: Non-owners can access property if the owner benefits. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 150, 135-144.
  • Doan, T., Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (2020). Young children use probability to infer happiness and the quality of outcomes. Psychological Science, 31, 149-159.
  • Friedman, O. (2020). Questions and potential answers about ways ownership and art matter for one another. Empirical Studies of the Arts, 38, 119-127.
  • Goulding, B. W. & Friedman, O. (2020). Children’s beliefs about possibility differ across dreams, stories, and reality. Child Development, 91, 1843-1853.
  • Mathy, F., Fartoukh, M., Friedman, O., Gauvrit, N., & Guida, A. (2020). Children’s working memory develops at similar rates for sequences differing in compressibility. L'Année Psychologique, 120, 175-202.
  • Mathy, F. & Friedman, O. (2020). Working memory develops at a similar rate across diverse stimuli. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 191, 104735.
  • Nancekivell, S. E. & Friedman, O. (2020). I owe you an explanation: Children’s beliefs about when people are obligated to explain their actions. In T. Lombrozo, J. Knobe, & S. Nichols (Eds.), Oxford studies in experimental philosophy (Vol. 3, pp. 213-231). Oxford University Press.
  • Starmans, C. & Friedman, O. (2020). Expert or esoteric? Philosophers attribute knowledge differently than all other academics. Cognitive Science, 44, e12850.
  • Thorburn, R., Bowman-Smith, C. K., & Friedman, O. (2020). Likely stories: Young children favor typical over atypical story events. Cognitive Development, 56, 100950.
  • Bowman-Smith, C.K., Shtulman, A., & Friedman, O. (2019). Distant lands make for distant possibilities: Children view improbable events as more possible in far-away locations. Developmental Psychology, 55, 722-728. 
  • Goulding, B. W., Atance, C. M., & Friedman, O. (2019). An advantage for ownership over preferences in children’s future thinking. Developmental Psychology, 55, 1702-1708.
  • Goulding, B. W. & Friedman, O. (2019). Future-oriented objects. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 42, E252. Commentary on Hoerl & McCormack (same issue).
  • Huh, M. & Friedman, O. (2019). Young children use supply and demand to infer desirability. Developmental Psychology, 55, 2483–2490.
  • Huh, M., Grossmann, I., & Friedman, O. (2019). Children show reduced trust in confident advisors who are partially-informed. Cognitive Development, 50, 49-55.
  • Levene, M., Hu, D. Z., & Friedman, O. (2019). The glow of grime: Why cleaning an old object can wash away its value. Judgment and Decision Making, 14, 565-572.
  • Meyers, E. A., Bialek, M., Fugelsang, J. A., Koehler, D. J., & Friedman, O. (2019). Wronging past rights: The sunk cost bias extends to moral judgment. Judgment and Decision Making, 14, 721-727.
  • Nancekivell, S. E., Friedman, O., & Gelman, S. A. (2019). Ownership matters: People possess a naive theory of ownership. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 23, 102-113.
  • Pesowski, M. L. & Friedman, O. (2019). Children value objects with distinctive histories. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 148, 2120-2128.
  • Pesowski, M. L., Kanngiesser, P., & Friedman, O. (2019). Give and take: Ownership affects how 2- and 3-year-olds allocate resources. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 185, 214-223.
  • Turpin, M. H., Meyers, E. A., Fugelsang, J. A., Friedman, O., & Bialek, M. (2019). Sunk cost bias and withdrawal aversion. American Journal of Bioethics, 19, 57-59. Commentary on Wilkinson, Butcherine, & Savulescu (same issue). 
  • Weatherhead, D., Friedman, O., & White, K. S. (2019). Preschoolers are sensitive to accent distance. Journal of Child Language, 46, 1058-1072.

  • Baer, C. & Friedman, O. (2018). Fitting the message to the listener: Children selectively mention general and specific facts. Child Development, 89, 461-475. 

  • Bialek, M., Fugelsang, J., & Friedman, O. (2018). Choosing victims: Human fungibility in moral decision-making. Judgment and Decision Making, 13, 451-457. 

  • Bowman-Smith, C. K., Goulding, B. W., & Friedman, O. (2018). Children hold owners responsible when property causes harm. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 147, 1191-1199.

  • Doan, T., Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (2018). Beyond belief: The probability-based notion of surprise in children. Emotion, 18, 1163-1173. 

  • Friedman, O., Pesowski, M. L. & Goulding, B. W. (2018). Legal ownership is psychological: Evidence from young children (pp. 19-31). In J. Peck and S. Shu (Eds.), Psychological ownership and consumer behavior. New York: Springer. ​

  • Goulding, B. W. & Friedman, O. (2018). The development of territory-based inferences of ownership. Cognition, 177, 142-149.  ​

  • Lenton-Brym, A. P., Moscovitch, D. A., Vidovic, V., Nilson, E., & Friedman, O. (2018). Theory of mind ability in high socially anxious individuals. Anxiety, Stress, and Coping, 31, 487-499. ​

  • Nancekivell, S. E. & Friedman, O. (2018). Spoiled for choice: Identifying the building blocks of folk-economic beliefs. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 41, e183. Commentary on Boyer & Petersen (same issue).​

  • Pesowski, M. L. & Friedman, O. (2018). Using versus liking: Young children use ownership to predict actions, but not to infer preferences. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 169, 19-29. ​

  • Weatherhead, D., Friedman, O., & White, K. S. (2018). Accent, language, and race: 4-6-year-old children’s inferences differ by speaker cue. Child Development, 89, 1613-1624. ​

  • Weatherhead, D., White, K. S., & Friedman, O. (2018). Children’s accent-based inferences depend on geographic background. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 175, 108-116. 

  • Huh, M. & Friedman, O. (2017). Young children’s understanding of the limits and benefits of group ownership. Developmental Psychology, 53, 686-697. ​

  • Nancekivell, S. & Friedman O. (2017). "Because it's hers": When preschoolers use ownership in their explanations. Cognitive Science, 41, 827-843. ​

  • Nancekivell, S. & Friedman O. (2017). She bought the unicorn from the pet store: Six-to-seven-year-olds are strongly inclined to generate natural explanations. Developmental Psychology, 53, 1079-1087.​

  • Turri, J., Friedman, O., & Keefner, A. (2017). Knowledge central: A central role for knowledge attributions in social evaluations. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 70, 504-515. 

  • Van de Vondervoort, J. W. & Friedman, O. (2017). Young children protest and correct pretense that contradicts their general knowledge. Cognitive Development, 43, 182-189.

  • Van de Vondervoort, J. W., Meinz, P., & Friedman, O. (2017). Children's judgments about ownership rights and body rights: Evidence for a common basis. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 155, 1-11.​

  • Baer, C. & Friedman, O. (2016). Children's generic interpretation of pretense. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 150, 99-111.

  • McEwan, S., Pesowski, M.L., & Friedman, O. (2016). Identical but not interchangeable: Preschoolers view owned objects as non-fungible. Cognition, 146, 16-21.
  • Millar, C., Starmans, C., Fugelsang, J., & Friedman, O. (2016). It’s personal: The effect of personal value on utilitarian moral judgments. Judgment and Decision Making, 11, 326-331.
  • Nancekivell, S.E., Millar, J.C., Summers, P.C., & Friedman, O. (2016). Ownership rights. In J. Sytsma & J.W. Buckwalter (Eds.), A companion to experimental philosophy (pp. 247-256). Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. 
  • Pesowski, M. L., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2016). Young children infer preferences from a single action, but not if it is constrained. Cognition, 155, 168-175.
  • Pesowski, M. L. & Friedman, O. (2016). Preschoolers use emotional reactions to infer relations: The case of ownership. Cognitive Development, 40, 60-67.
  • Starmans, C. & Friedman, O. (2016). If I am free you can't own me: Autonomy makes entities less ownable. Cognition, 148, 145-153.
  • Weatherhead, D., White, K. S., & Friedman, O. (2016). Where are you from? Preschoolers infer background from accent. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 143, 171-178.
  • Friedman, O. & Turri, J. (2015). Is probabilistic evidence a source of knowledge? Cognitive Science, 39, 1062-1080.
  • Levene, M., Starmans, C., & Friedman, O. (2015). Creation in judgments about the establishment of ownership. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 60, 103-109.
  • Mathy, F., Friedman, O., Courenq, B., Laurent, L., & Millot, J.L. (2015). Rule-based category use in preschool children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 131, 1-18.
  • Pesowski, M. L. & Friedman, O. (2015). Preschoolers and toddlers use ownership to predict basic emotions. Emotion, 15, 104-108.
  • Ross, H., Friedman, O., & Field, A. (2015). Toddlers assert and acknowledge ownership rights. Social Development, 24, 341-356.
  • Van de Vondervoort, J.W. & Friedman, O. (2015). Children have difficulty using object location to recognize when natural objects are owned. Cognitive Development, 35, 50-64.
  • Van de Vondervoort, J.W. & Friedman, O. (2015). Parallels in preschoolers’ and adults’ judgments about ownership rights and bodily rights. Cognitive Science, 39, 184-198.
  • Malcolm, S.L., Defeyter, M.A., & Friedman, O. (2014). Children and adults use gender- and age-stereotypes in ownership judgments. Journal of Cognition and Development, 15, 123-135.
  • Millar, J.C., Turri, J., & Friedman, O. (2014). For the greater goods? Ownership rights and utilitarian moral judgment. Cognition, 133, 79-84.
  • Nancekivell, S.E. & Friedman, O. (2014). Mine, yours, no-one's: Children’s understanding of how ownership affects object use. Developmental Psychology, 50, 1845-1853.
  • Nancekivell, S.E. & Friedman, O. (2014). Preschoolers selectively infer history when explaining outcomes: Evidence from explanations of ownership, liking, and use. Child Development, 85, 1236-1247.
  • Neary, K.R. & Friedman, O. (2014). Young children give priority to ownership when judging who should use an object. Child Development, 85, 326-337.
  • Turri, J. & Friedman, O. (2014). Winners and losers in the folk epistemology of lotteries. In J. Beebe (Ed.), Advances in experimental epistemology (pp. 45-69). New York: Continuum.
  • Van de Vondervoort, J.W. & Friedman, O. (2014). Preschoolers can infer general rules governing fantastical events in fiction. Developmental Psychology, 50, 1594-1599.
  • Friedman, O. (2013). How do children represent pretend play? In M. Taylor (Ed.), Oxford handbook of the development of imagination (pp. 186-195). New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Friedman, O, Van de Vondervoort, J.W., Defeyter, M.A., & Neary, K.R. (2013). First possession, history, and young children’s ownership judgments. Child Development, 84, 1519-1525.
  • Nancekivell, S.E., Van de Vondervoort, J.W., & Friedman, O. (2013). Young children’s understanding of ownership. Child Development Perspectives, 7, 243-247.
  • Neary, K.R. & Friedman, O. (2013). The origin of children’s appreciation of ownership rights. In M.R. Banaji & S.A. Gelman (Eds.), Navigating the social World: What infants, children, and other species can teach us (pp. 356-360). New York: Oxford University Press. 
  • Starmans, C. & Friedman, O. (2013). Taking 'know' for an answer: A reply to Nagel, San Juan, and Mar. Cognition,129, 662-665.
  • Sutherland, S.L. & Friedman, O. (2013). Just pretending can be really learning: Children use pretend-play as a source for acquiring generic knowledge. Developmental Psychology, 49, 1660-1668.
  • Neary, K.R., Van de Vondervoort, J.W., & Friedman, O. (2012). Artifacts and natural kinds: Children's judgments about whether objects are owned. Developmental Psychology, 48, 149-158.
  • Palamar, M., Le, D.T., Friedman, O. (2012). Acquiring ownership and the attribution of responsibility. Cognition, 124, 201-208.
  • Starmans, C. & Friedman, O. (2012). The folk conception of knowledge. Cognition, 124, 272-283.
  • Sutherland, S. & Friedman, O. (2012). Preschoolers acquire general knowledge by sharing in pretense. Child Development, 83, 1064-1071. 
  • Friedman, O., Neary, K.R., Defeyter, M.A., & Malcolm, S.L. (2011). Ownership and object history. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 132, 79-89.
  • Friedman, O. & Ross, H. (2011). Twenty-one reasons to care about the psychological basis of ownership. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 132, 1-8.
  • Petrashek, A.R. & Friedman, O. (2011). The signature of inhibition in theory of mind: Children’s predictions of behavior based on avoidance desire. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 18, 199-203
  • Baker, S., Friedman, O., & Leslie, A.M. (2010). The opposites task: Using general rules to test cognitive flexibility in preschoolers. Journal of Cognition and Development, 11, 240-254.
  • Friedman, O. (2010). Necessary for possession: How people reason about the acquisition of ownership. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36, 1161-1169.
  • Friedman, O., Neary, K.R., Burnstein, C.L., & Leslie, A.M. (2010). Is young children's recognition of pretense metarepresentational or merely behavioral? Evidence from 2- and 3-year-olds' understanding of pretend sounds and speech. Cognition, 115, 314-319.
  • Neary, K.R., Friedman, O., & Burnstein, C.L. (2009). Preschoolers infer ownership from “control of permission”. Developmental Psychology, 45, 873-876.
  • Friedman, O. & Neary, K.R. (2009). First possession beyond the law: Adults' and young children's intuitions about ownership. Tulane Law Review, 83, 679-690.
  • Friedman, O. & Petrashek, A.R. (2009). Children do not follow the rule ‘ignorance means getting it wrong’. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 102, 114-121.
  • Friedman, O. (2008). First possession: An assumption guiding inferences about who owns what. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 15, 290-295.
  • Friedman, O., & Neary, K.R. (2008). Determining who owns what: Do children infer ownership from first possession? Cognition, 107, 829-849.
  • Friedman, O., & Leslie, A.M. (2007). The conceptual underpinnings of pretense: Pretending is not 'behaving-as-if'. Cognition, 105, 103-124.
  • Bosco, F.M., Friedman, O., & Leslie, A.M. (2006). Recognition of pretend and real actions in play by one- and two-year-olds: Early success and why they fail (PDF). Cognitive Development, 21, 3-10.
  • Griffin, R., Friedman, O., Ween, J., Winner, E., Happé, F. & Brownell, H. (2006). Theory of Mind and the Right Cerebral Hemisphere: Refining the scope of impairment (PDF). Laterality, 11, 195-225.
  • Friedman, O., & Leslie, A.M. (2005). A developmental shift in processes underlying successful belief-desire reasoning (PDF)Developmental Science, 8, 218-225.
  • Friedman, O., & Leslie, A.M. (2004). A developmental shift in processes underlying successful belief-desire reasoning (PDF). Cognitive Science, 28, 963-977.
  • Leslie, A.M., Friedman, O., & German, T. P. (2004). Core mechanisms in 'theory of mind' (PDF). Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8, 528-533.
  • Friedman, O. & Leslie, A.M. (2004). Mechanisms of belief-desire reasoning: Inhibition and bias (PDF). Psychological Science, 15, 547-552.
  • Friedman, O., Griffin, R., Brownell, H. & Winner, E. (2003). Problems with the seeing = knowing rule (PDF). Developmental Science, 6, 505-513.
  • Brownell, H., & Friedman, O. (2001). Discourse ability in patients with unilateral left and right hemisphere brain damage. In R. S. Berndt (Ed.),  Handbook of Neuropsychology, 2nd edition, Vol. 3. (pp. 189-203). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
  • Brownell, H., Griffin, R., Winner, E., Friedman, O., & Happe, F. (2000). Cerebral lateralization and theory of mind. In S. Baron-Cohen, H. Tager-Flusberg, & D. J. Cohen (Eds.),  Understanding other minds: Perspectives from autism and developmental cognitive neuroscience, 2nd edition (pp. 311-338). Oxford: Oxford University Press.