In decades past, economists used to joke that the stock market went up and down with the length that the fashion world prescribed for women's skirts; if the stock market went down, skirts were worn longer. What kind of reasoning were they using? this is generalization reasoning because they looked at a lot of skirts over time this is causal reasoning, because one followed the other this is no kind of reasoning; it's just a joke and a sexist one, too this is sign reasoning, but a fallacious example, because the two are not really connected