"pete is older than jill, and jill is older than pat. who is older, pete or pat? " the ability to solve problems such as this demonstrates competence in

The ability to solve problems such as "Pete is older than Jill, and Jill is older than Pat, who is older?, demonstrates competence in transitivity.  In psychology the term transitivity inference is used to describe the competence that an individual acquires, commonly around the ages of 7 to 12 years old. The  individual has a higher capacity of reasoning and  is able to replace words, like better than, older than, shorter than, with a transitive relation, as shown in the case of the question.

experiments.

surveys.

questionnaires.

interviews.

case studies.

participant and non-participant observation.

observational trials.

studies using the delphi method.

when your a dog and you need a bone.   go and eat a rabbit