Congratulations to Michael Tomasello, whose book Becoming Human: A Theory of Ontogeny (Harvard University Press, 2019) has received the 2019 Williams James Book Award from the American Psychological Association.
Among the most prestigious awards in the field, the William James Award is intended to honor and publicize a recent book published within the last two years that brings together diverse subfields of psychology and related disciplines. This work should provide a creative synthesis of theory, fact and themes that serve to unify or integrate the field.
Dr. Tomasello is a world-renowned scholar on social cognition, social learning, and communication/language in human children and great apes. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2017.
Recent Publications
Tomasello, Michael, and Josep Call. “Thirty years of great ape gestures..” Animal Cognition, vol. 22, no. 4, July 2019, pp. 461–69. Epmc, doi:10.1007/s10071-018-1167-1. Full Text Open Access Copy
Hepach, Robert, et al. “The relation between young children's physiological arousal and their motivation to help others..” Neuropsychologia, vol. 126, Mar. 2019, pp. 113–19. Epmc, doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.10.010. Full Text Open Access Copy
Tomasello, M. “Great Apes and Human Development: A Personal History.” Child Development Perspectives, vol. 12, no. 3, Sept. 2018, pp. 189–93. Scopus, doi:10.1111/cdep.12281. Full Text Open Access Copy
Kachel, Ulrike, et al. “Three-Year-Olds' Reactions to a Partner's Failure to Perform Her Role in a Joint Commitment..” Child Development, vol. 89, no. 5, Sept. 2018, pp. 1691–703. Epmc, doi:10.1111/cdev.12816. Full Text Open Access Copy
Kachel, Gregor, et al. “Two-year-olds use adults' but not peers' points..” Developmental Science, vol. 21, no. 5, Sept. 2018. Epmc, doi:10.1111/desc.12660. Full Text
Tomasello, Michael. “How children come to understand false beliefs: A shared intentionality account..” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 115, no. 34, Aug. 2018, pp. 8491–98. Epmc, doi:10.1073/pnas.1804761115. Full Text
Bohn, Manuel, et al. “The social-cognitive basis of infants' reference to absent entities..” Cognition, vol. 177, Aug. 2018, pp. 41–48. Epmc, doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2018.03.024. Full Text
House, Bailey R., and Michael Tomasello. “Modeling social norms increasingly influences costly sharing in middle childhood..” Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, vol. 171, July 2018, pp. 84–98. Epmc, doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2017.12.014. Full Text
Domberg, Andreas, et al. “Children's reasoning with peers in cooperative and competitive contexts..” The British Journal of Developmental Psychology, vol. 36, no. 1, Mar. 2018, pp. 64–77. Epmc, doi:10.1111/bjdp.12213. Full Text Open Access Copy
Vaish, Amrisha, et al. “The specificity of reciprocity: Young children reciprocate more generously to those who intentionally benefit them..” Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, vol. 167, Mar. 2018, pp. 336–53. Epmc, doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2017.11.005. Full Text Open Access Copy
Grocke, Patricia, et al. “Young children are more willing to accept group decisions in which they have had a voice..” Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, vol. 166, Feb. 2018, pp. 67–78. Epmc, doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2017.08.003. Full Text Open Access Copy
Köymen, Bahar, and Michael Tomasello. “Children's meta-talk in their collaborative decision making with peers..” Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, vol. 166, Feb. 2018, pp. 549–66. Epmc, doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2017.09.018. Full Text Open Access Copy
Engelmann, Jan M., et al. “Concern for Group Reputation Increases Prosociality in Young Children..” Psychological Science, vol. 29, no. 2, Feb. 2018, pp. 181–90. Epmc, doi:10.1177/0956797617733830. Full Text Open Access Copy
Mammen, Maria, et al. “The reasons young children give to peers when explaining their judgments of moral and conventional rules..” Developmental Psychology, vol. 54, no. 2, Feb. 2018, pp. 254–62. Epmc, doi:10.1037/dev0000424. Full Text Open Access Copy
Halina, Marta, et al. “The goal of ape pointing..” Plos One, vol. 13, no. 4, Jan. 2018. Epmc, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0195182. Full Text
Schmidt, Marco F. H., et al. “Children's developing metaethical judgments..” Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, vol. 164, Dec. 2017, pp. 163–77. Epmc, doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2017.07.008. Full Text Open Access Copy
Hepach, Robert, et al. “Toddlers Help a Peer..” Child Development, vol. 88, no. 5, Sept. 2017, pp. 1642–52. Epmc, doi:10.1111/cdev.12686. Full Text Open Access Copy
Tomasello, Michael, and Ivan Gonzalez-Cabrera. “The Role of Ontogeny in the Evolution of Human Cooperation..” Human Nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.), vol. 28, no. 3, Sept. 2017, pp. 274–88. Epmc, doi:10.1007/s12110-017-9291-1. Full Text Open Access Copy
Kano, Fumihiro, et al. “Submentalizing Cannot Explain Belief-Based Action Anticipation in Apes..” Trends in Cognitive Sciences, vol. 21, no. 9, Sept. 2017, pp. 633–34. Epmc, doi:10.1016/j.tics.2017.06.011. Full Text Open Access Copy
Grueneisen, Sebastian, et al. “Children, chimpanzees, and bonobos adjust the visibility of their actions for cooperators and competitors..” Scientific Reports, vol. 7, no. 1, Aug. 2017. Epmc, doi:10.1038/s41598-017-08435-7. Full Text Open Access Copy
Engelmann, Jan M., et al. “Social disappointment explains chimpanzees' behaviour in the inequity aversion task..” Proceedings. Biological Sciences, vol. 284, no. 1861, Aug. 2017. Epmc, doi:10.1098/rspb.2017.1502. Full Text Open Access Copy
Haux, Lou, et al. “Do young children preferentially trust gossip or firsthand observation in choosing a collaborative partner?.” Social Development, vol. 26, no. 3, Wiley, Aug. 2017, pp. 466–74. Crossref, doi:10.1111/sode.12225. Full Text Open Access Copy
Hepach, Robert, et al. “Children's Intrinsic Motivation to Provide Help Themselves After Accidentally Harming Others..” Child Development, vol. 88, no. 4, July 2017, pp. 1251–64. Epmc, doi:10.1111/cdev.12646. Full Text Open Access Copy
Kanngiesser, Patricia, et al. “Young children mostly keep, and expect others to keep, their promises..” Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, vol. 159, July 2017, pp. 140–58. Epmc, doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2017.02.004. Full Text Open Access Copy
Schmelz, Martin, et al. “Chimpanzees return favors at a personal cost..” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 114, no. 28, July 2017, pp. 7462–67. Epmc, doi:10.1073/pnas.1700351114. Full Text Open Access Copy
Hardecker, Susanne, and Michael Tomasello. “From imitation to implementation: How two- and three-year-old children learn to enforce social norms.” British Journal of Developmental Psychology, vol. 35, no. 2, Wiley, June 2017, pp. 237–48. Crossref, doi:10.1111/bjdp.12159. Full Text Open Access Copy
Rapp, Diotima J., et al. “The impact of choice on young children’s prosocial motivation.” Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, vol. 158, Elsevier BV, June 2017, pp. 112–21. Crossref, doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2017.01.004. Full Text Open Access Copy
Sánchez-Amaro, Alejandro, et al. “Chimpanzees, bonobos and children successfully coordinate in conflict situations..” Proceedings. Biological Sciences, vol. 284, no. 1856, June 2017. Epmc, doi:10.1098/rspb.2017.0259. Full Text Open Access Copy
Hardecker, S., et al. “Children’s Developing Understanding of the Conventionality of Rules.” Journal of Cognition and Development, vol. 18, no. 2, Mar. 2017, pp. 163–88. Scopus, doi:10.1080/15248372.2016.1255624. Full Text Open Access Copy
Ulber, Julia, et al. “Young children, but not chimpanzees, are averse to disadvantageous and advantageous inequities..” Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, vol. 155, Mar. 2017, pp. 48–66. Epmc, doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2016.10.013. Full Text Open Access Copy
Grueneisen, Sebastian, and Michael Tomasello. “Children coordinate in a recurrent social dilemma by taking turns and along dominance asymmetries..” Developmental Psychology, vol. 53, no. 2, Feb. 2017, pp. 265–73. Epmc, doi:10.1037/dev0000236. Full Text Open Access Copy
Hepach, Robert, et al. “The fulfillment of others' needs elevates children's body posture..” Developmental Psychology, vol. 53, no. 1, Jan. 2017, pp. 100–13. Epmc, doi:10.1037/dev0000173. Full Text Open Access Copy
Buttelmann, David, et al. “Great apes distinguish true from false beliefs in an interactive helping task..” Plos One, vol. 12, no. 4, Jan. 2017. Epmc, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0173793. Full Text Open Access Copy
Krupenye, Christopher, et al. “A test of the submentalizing hypothesis: Apes' performance in a false belief task inanimate control..” Communicative & Integrative Biology, vol. 10, no. 4, Jan. 2017. Epmc, doi:10.1080/19420889.2017.1343771. Full Text Open Access Copy
Vaish, Amrisha, et al. “The Early Emergence of Guilt-Motivated Prosocial Behavior..” Child Development, vol. 87, no. 6, Nov. 2016, pp. 1772–82. Epmc, doi:10.1111/cdev.12628. Full Text Open Access Copy
Hepach, Robert, et al. “Young Children Want to See Others Get the Help They Need..” Child Development, vol. 87, no. 6, Nov. 2016, pp. 1703–14. Epmc, doi:10.1111/cdev.12633. Full Text Open Access Copy
Schmidt, Marco F. H., and Michael Tomasello. “How chimpanzees cooperate: If dominance is artificially constrained..” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 113, no. 44, Nov. 2016, pp. E6728–29. Epmc, doi:10.1073/pnas.1614378113. Full Text Open Access Copy
Krupenye, Christopher, et al. “Great apes anticipate that other individuals will act according to false beliefs..” Science (New York, N.Y.), vol. 354, no. 6308, Oct. 2016, pp. 110–14. Epmc, doi:10.1126/science.aaf8110. Full Text Open Access Copy
Tomasello, Michael. “In Memoriam: Jerome Seymour Bruner [1915–2016].” Cognition, vol. 155, Elsevier BV, Oct. 2016, pp. iii–iv. Crossref, doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2016.07.013. Full Text Open Access Copy
Schmidt, Marco F. H., et al. “Young Children See a Single Action and Infer a Social Norm.” Psychological Science, vol. 27, no. 10, SAGE Publications, Oct. 2016, pp. 1360–70. Crossref, doi:10.1177/0956797616661182. Full Text Open Access Copy
Department of Psychology & Neuroscience
