Michael Tomasello
Michael Tomasello (born January 18, 1950) is an American developmental and comparative psychologist, as well as a linguist. He is professor of psychology at Duke University.
Earning many prizes and awards from the end of the 1990s onward, he is considered one of today's most authoritative developmental and comparative psychologists. He is "one of the few scientists worldwide who is acknowledged as an expert in multiple disciplines".[1] His "pioneering research on the origins of social cognition has led to revolutionary insights in both developmental psychology and primate cognition."[2]
Early life and education[edit]
Tomasello was born in Bartow, Florida and attended high school at the Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut. He received his bachelor's degree 1972 from Duke University and his doctorate in Experimental Psychology 1980 from University of Georgia.[3]
social learning through pedagogical ostension and deliberate transmission;
over-imitation, imitating not only action but also manners and styles of doing;
informative pointing;
perspectival views, looking at the same thing or event alternatively from another agent's angle;
recursive mind reading, knowing what others know we know they know (and so forth);
third-party punishment (when agent C punishes or avoids collaborating with agent B because of agent B's unfairness toward agent A);
building and enlarging common ground (communicating in order to share with others, and building a sphere of things that are commonly known);
group-mindedness (prescriptive feeling of belonging, of interdependence, of self-monitoring following general, impersonal expectations); and
cumulative culture, sometimes coined "the ratchet effect".
1997
Guggenheim Fellowship
German National Academy of Sciences (elected, 2003)
Paris, 2004
Fyssen Foundation Prize
Cognitive Development Society Book Award, 2005 (for Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition)
Paris, 2006
Jean Nicod Prize
Fellow, Cognitive Science Society (elected 2008)
Stuttgart, 2009
Hegel Prize
Oswald Külpe Prize, , 2009
University of Würzburg
Max Planck Research Prize [Human Evolution], Humboldt Society, 2010
for Cognitive Science, Amsterdam, 2010
Heineken Prize
Hungarian National Academy of Sciences (elected, 2010)
Klaus Jacobs Research Prize, 2011
[15]
Wiesbadener Helmuth Plessner Prize, 2014
[16]
Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award, American Psychological Association, 2015
(elected, 2017)
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
(elected, 2017)
National Academy of Sciences
Tomasello, M. (1999). The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition, Harvard University Press. 0-674-00582-1 (Winner of the William James Book Award of the APA, 2001)
ISBN
Tomasello, M. (2003). Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition, Harvard University Press. 0-674-01764-1 (Winner of the Cognitive Development Society Book Award, 2005)
ISBN
Tomasello, M. (2008). Origins of Human Communication, MIT Press. 978-0-262-20177-3 (Winner of the Eleanor Maccoby Book Award of the APA, 2009)
ISBN
Tomasello, M. (2014). A Natural History of Human Thinking, Harvard University Press. 978-0-674-72477-8
ISBN
Tomasello, M. (2016). A Natural History of Human Morality, Harvard University Press. 978-0-674-08864-1 (Winner of the Eleanor Maccoby Book Award of the APA, 2018)
ISBN
Tomasello, M. (2019). Becoming Human: A Theory of Ontogeny. Harvard University Press.
Tomasello, M. (2022). The Evolution of Agency: From Lizards to Humans. MIT Press.
Dawn of Humanity (2015 PBS film)
at Duke University
Official website
Jean Nicod Lectures (2006)