Becoming Human: A Theory of Ontogeny
Speaker
Michael TomaselloDuke University
Location
SAGE Center, Psychology 1312Info
Over the past two decades, my colleagues and I have documented many differences in the cognitive and social abilities of human children and their nearest great ape relatives. In this talk, I attempt to bring these studies together into a coherent theory of the ontogeny of uniquely human psychology. For each of eight uniquely human developmental pathways - four cognitive and four sociomoral – there are two key transitions: one at 9 months (joint intentionality) and one at 3 years (collective intentionality). The hypothesis is that these transitions result from the new kinds of social coordination, sociocultural experience, and social self-regulation that the maturation of the capacities for joint and collective intentionality make possible.
