Michael Tomasello

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Michael Tomasello (born January 18, 1950 in Bartow , Florida , USA ) is an American anthropologist and behavioral scientist .

Scientific career

After studying psychology at Duke University and a doctorate in experimental psychology at the University of Georgia , he taught psychology at Emory University from 1980 to 1998 , where he also worked at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center since 1982 . From 1998 to 2018 he was co-director at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig , where he heads the Wolfgang Köhler Primate Research Center . From 1999 to 2018 he was honorary professor at the University of Leipzig .

Shared intentionality

Michael Tomasello deals with the evolution of human language , also to describe the difference between humans and animals . This led to the development of the concept of shared intentionality or we-intentionality :

  • There are three basic motives for communication (also so-called cooperative / social motivations): prompting, informing, sharing (food, feelings, attitudes).
  • Human linguistic communication emerged from gestural communication.
  • There are basically two different types of gestural communication, pointing gestures and iconic gestures. Iconic gestures were replaced by language in the phylogenetic development of humans, and pointing gestures are also used.
  • Gestural communication requires an understanding of the other person's intentions . The prompting only requires the understanding of the subjective intentions of the other person, informing and sharing, however, require a shared intentionality to participate with others in cooperative activities with shared goals and common intentions . Apes can acquire intentions of other monkeys and humans, and communicate with gestures to prompt. But only people communicate for the purpose of informing and sharing, because only they can coordinate intentions.
  • The sharing led to strong group cohesion. Group selection pressure led to the formation of group norms .

Conventional languages ​​emerged from gestural communication, with pointing gestures further complementing linguistic communication. Iconic gestures were replaced by verbal utterances. Due to a drift (gestures are misinterpreted due to a lack of understanding of the common background in the community, with a new meaning of the gestures gradually becoming established), the meanings of gestures changed from a natural to an arbitrary one.

The evolution from challenging communication through informative communication to sharing communication went hand in hand with an increasing complexity of the associated grammars .

The concept is based u. a. on extensive empirical studies on the communication of great apes, language acquisition by children and deaf communication .

Awards and memberships

Tomasello has been a member of the Leopoldina since 2001 , and in 2004 he received the International Prize of the Fyssen Foundation. In 2006 Tomasello was awarded the Jean Nicod Prize , in 2009 the Hegel Prize of the City of Stuttgart and the Oswald Külpe Prize of the University of Würzburg. In 2010 he was awarded the Max Planck Research Prize together with Timothy G. Bromage . In 2011 he was awarded the Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize by the Jacobs Foundation and the Wiley Prize in Psychology from the British Academy . In 2014 he was honored with the Wiesbaden Helmuth Plessner Prize , which was awarded for the first time . Tomasello was selected as the Albertus Magnus Professorship at the University of Cologne in 2014 . In 2015 it received the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the American Psychological Association (APA), which is also the highest scientific award of this society. In 2016 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Leipzig , and in 2017 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences .

In 2010 and 2018 Michael Tomasello received the Eleanor Maccoby Book Award in Developmental Psychology .

Publications (selection)

  • Primate cognition . with Josep Call. Oxford University Press, 1997. ISBN 978-0-19-510624-4 .
  • The cultural evolution of human thought. On the evolution of cognition . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2006. ISBN 978-3-518-29427-7 .
  • Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition . Harvard University Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0-674-01764-1 .
  • The origins of human communication . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2011. ISBN 978-3-518-29604-2 . (Original title: Origins of Human Communication.)
  • Why we cooperate . Suhrkamp Verlag Berlin 2010. ISBN 978-3-518-26036-4 . (Original title: Why We Cooperate)
  • A natural history of human thought , Berlin: Suhrkamp 2014, ISBN 978-3-518-58615-0 . (Original: A Natural History of Human Thinking).
  • A natural history of human morality , from the American by Jürgen Schröder (originally published under the title A Natural History of Human Morality ) (Harvard University Press), Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-518-58695-2 .
  • Becoming Human: A Theory of Ontogeny . Harvard University Press 2019. ISBN 0674980859 .

literature

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b CV on eva.mpg.de
  2. ↑ Profile on mpg.de
  3. ^ Staff at the Wolfgang Köhler Primate Research Center
  4. ↑ Michael Tomasello, Malinda Carpenter, Josep Call, Tanya Behne, Henrike Moll: Understanding and sharing intentions: The origins of cultural cognition. In: Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 28, 2005, S., doi: 10.1017 / S0140525X05000129 . ( online ; PDF; 1.1 MB)
  5. ↑ Michael Tomasello, Malinda Carpenter: Shared intentionality. In: Developmental Science. 10, 2007, pp. 121-125, doi: 10.1111 / j.1467-7687.2007.00573.x . ( online ( Memento from January 12, 2016 in the Internet Archive ); PDF; 65 kB)
  6. ↑ Member entry by Michael Tomasello at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on July 22, 2016.
  7. ^ Fondation Fyssen, Prix ​​international: Lauréats. ( Memento of May 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) at: fondationfyssen.fr
  8. ↑ General Psychology: Wiley Prize in Psychology . In: Wiley Online Library .
  9. ^ Helmuth Plessner Society: Prize winners at: helmuth-plessner.de
  10. ↑ see page of the APA with the Distinguished Awards 2015
  11. ^ Susann Huster: Honorary doctorate from the University of Leipzig for Michael Tomasello. University of Leipzig, press release from November 15, 2016 from Informationsdienst Wissenschaft (idw-online.de), accessed on November 15, 2016.
  12. ^ Eleanor Maccoby Book Award in Developmental Psychology. Retrieved December 27, 2018 .
  13. ↑ We don't let ourselves be made monkeys , report in the FAZ of October 4, 2014, page L23
personal data
SURNAME Tomasello, Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American anthropologist
DATE OF BIRTH January 18, 1950
PLACE OF BIRTH Bartow , Florida , USA