Michael Tomasello

132.8k total citations · 34 hit papers
754 papers, 74.2k citations indexed

About

Michael Tomasello is a scholar working on Developmental and Educational Psychology, Social Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience. According to data from OpenAlex, Michael Tomasello has authored 754 papers receiving a total of 74.2k indexed citations (citations by other indexed papers that have themselves been cited), including 549 papers in Developmental and Educational Psychology, 299 papers in Social Psychology and 136 papers in Cognitive Neuroscience. Recurrent topics in Michael Tomasello's work include Child and Animal Learning Development (456 papers), Primate Behavior and Ecology (183 papers) and Language Development and Disorders (151 papers). Michael Tomasello is often cited by papers focused on Child and Animal Learning Development (456 papers), Primate Behavior and Ecology (183 papers) and Language Development and Disorders (151 papers). Michael Tomasello collaborates with scholars based in Germany, United States and United Kingdom. Michael Tomasello's co-authors include Josep Call, Malinda Carpenter, Brian Hare, Felix Warneken, Henrike Moll, M. Jeffrey Farrar, Elena Lieven, Tanya Behne, Ann Cale Kruger and Hannes Rakoczy and has published in prestigious journals such as Nature, Science and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In The Last Decade

Michael Tomasello

733 papers receiving 69.3k citations

Hit Papers

Understanding and sharing intentions: The ori... 1986 2026 1999 2012 2005 2000 1994 1998 2008 500 1000 1.5k 2.0k 2.5k
What are hit papers?

Hit papers significantly outperform the citation benchmark for their cohort. A paper qualifies if it has ≥500 total citations, achieves ≥1.5× the top-1% citation threshold for papers in the same subfield and year (this is the minimum needed to enter the top 1%, not the average within it), or reaches the top citation threshold in at least one of its specific research topics.

  1. Understanding and sharing intentions: The origins of cultural cognition
    2005 2.6k citations Michael Tomasello, Malinda Carpenter et al. profile →
  2. The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition
    2000 2.5k citations Michael Tomasello profile →
  3. Variability in Early Communicative Development
    1994 2.0k citations Michael Tomasello et al. profile →
  4. Social Cognition, Joint Attention, and Communicative Competence from 9 to 15 Months of Age
    1998 1.7k citations Malinda Carpenter, Michael Tomasello et al. profile →
  5. Origins of Human Communication
    2008 1.3k citations Michael Tomasello profile →
  6. Cultural learning
    1993 1.1k citations Michael Tomasello et al. profile →
  7. Joint Attention and Early Language
    1986 1.0k citations Michael Tomasello et al. profile →
  8. Joint Attention and Early Language
    1986 931 citations Michael Tomasello et al. profile →
  9. Altruistic Helping in Human Infants and Young Chimpanzees
    2006 917 citations Felix Warneken, Michael Tomasello Science profile →
  10. Humans Have Evolved Specialized Skills of Social Cognition: The Cultural Intelligence Hypothesis
    2007 832 citations Esther Herrmann, Josep Call et al. Science profile →
  11. A Natural History of Human Thinking
    2014 758 citations Michael Tomasello profile →
  12. Primate cognition
    1997 757 citations Michael Tomasello, Josep Call profile →
  13. The Domestication of Social Cognition in Dogs
    2002 709 citations Brian Hare, Michael Tomasello et al. Science profile →
  14. Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind? 30 years later
    2008 708 citations Josep Call, Michael Tomasello profile →
  15. Joint attention as social cognition.
    1995 707 citations Michael Tomasello profile →
  16. Ratcheting up the ratchet: on the evolution of cumulative culture
    2009 658 citations Josep Call, Michael Tomasello et al. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences profile →
  17. Human-like social skills in dogs?
    2005 639 citations Brian Hare, Michael Tomasello profile →
  18. A New Look at Infant Pointing
    2007 567 citations Michael Tomasello, Malinda Carpenter et al. profile →
  19. Do young children have adult syntactic competence?
    2000 558 citations Michael Tomasello profile →
  20. Do chimpanzees know what conspecifics know?
    2001 550 citations Brian Hare, Josep Call et al. profile →
  21. Chimpanzees know what conspecifics do and do not see
    2000 536 citations Josep Call, Michael Tomasello et al. profile →
  22. Why We Cooperate
    2009 534 citations Michael Tomasello profile →
  23. Joint music making promotes prosocial behavior in 4-year-old children☆☆☆
    2010 523 citations Michael Tomasello et al. profile →
  24. Shared intentionality
    2006 509 citations Michael Tomasello, Malinda Carpenter Developmental Science profile →
  25. Why We Cooperate
    2009 488 citations Michael Tomasello profile →
  26. Fourteen- through 18-month-old infants differentially imitate intentional and accidental actions
    1998 483 citations Malinda Carpenter, Michael Tomasello et al. profile →
  27. Primate Cognition
    2010 479 citations Michael Tomasello et al. profile →
  28. Two Key Steps in the Evolution of Human Cooperation
    2012 458 citations Michael Tomasello, Esther Herrmann et al. profile →
  29. Origins of Human Cooperation and Morality
    2012 440 citations Michael Tomasello, Amrisha Vaish profile →
  30. A Natural History of Human Morality
    2016 376 citations Michael Tomasello profile →
  31. Great apes anticipate that other individuals will act according to false beliefs
    2016 366 citations Christopher Krupenye, Fumihiro Kano et al. Science profile →
  32. Becoming Human
    2019 323 citations Michael Tomasello profile →
  33. Becoming Human A Theory of Ontogeny
    2019 240 citations Michael Tomasello profile →
  34. How children come to understand false beliefs: A shared intentionality account
    2018 144 citations Michael Tomasello Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences profile →

Peers — A (Enhanced Table)

Peers by citation overlap · career bar shows stage (early→late) cites · hero ref

Name h Career Trend Papers Cites
Michael Tomasello Germany 137 43.6k 30.3k 19.8k 12.4k 11.3k 754 74.2k
Andrew N. Meltzoff United States 90 15.5k 0.4× 11.6k 0.4× 13.6k 0.7× 5.9k 0.5× 2.8k 0.2× 292 31.7k
Simon Baron‐Cohen United Kingdom 160 24.4k 0.6× 17.3k 0.6× 73.6k 3.7× 13.5k 1.1× 3.8k 0.3× 735 103.9k
Mark H. Johnson United Kingdom 98 9.5k 0.2× 6.8k 0.2× 21.1k 1.1× 8.5k 0.7× 1.3k 0.1× 492 37.2k
Marc H. Bornstein United States 98 11.1k 0.3× 13.1k 0.4× 9.9k 0.5× 7.2k 0.6× 6.5k 0.6× 660 50.9k
Josep Call Germany 82 13.2k 0.3× 16.6k 0.5× 6.9k 0.3× 4.1k 0.3× 3.6k 0.3× 427 27.3k
Uta Frith United Kingdom 89 19.7k 0.5× 9.5k 0.3× 32.0k 1.6× 5.6k 0.5× 1.7k 0.1× 224 44.6k
Henry M. Wellman United States 74 16.8k 0.4× 8.0k 0.3× 7.2k 0.4× 3.3k 0.3× 2.3k 0.2× 215 23.1k
Robert J. Sternberg United States 114 13.8k 0.3× 14.0k 0.5× 6.6k 0.3× 21.3k 1.7× 4.9k 0.4× 909 50.8k
Paul Ekman United States 89 4.2k 0.1× 25.1k 0.8× 22.6k 1.1× 23.0k 1.9× 7.8k 0.7× 196 58.8k
Jerome S. Bruner United States 73 15.7k 0.4× 6.7k 0.2× 4.8k 0.2× 5.1k 0.4× 8.5k 0.8× 250 48.4k

Countries citing papers authored by Michael Tomasello

Since Specialization
Citations

This map shows the geographic impact of Michael Tomasello's research. It shows the number of citations coming from papers published by authors working in each country. You can also color the map by specialization and compare the number of citations received by Michael Tomasello with the expected number of citations based on a country's size and research output (numbers larger than one mean the country cites Michael Tomasello more than expected).

Fields of papers citing papers by Michael Tomasello

Since Specialization
Physical SciencesHealth SciencesLife SciencesSocial Sciences

This network shows the impact of papers produced by Michael Tomasello. Nodes represent research fields, and links connect fields that are likely to share authors. Colored nodes show fields that tend to cite the papers produced by Michael Tomasello. The network helps show where Michael Tomasello may publish in the future.

Co-authorship network of co-authors of Michael Tomasello

This figure shows the co-authorship network connecting the top 25 collaborators of Michael Tomasello. A scholar is included among the top collaborators of Michael Tomasello based on the total number of citations received by their joint publications. Widths of edges represent the number of papers authors have co-authored together. Node borders signify the number of papers an author published with Michael Tomasello. Michael Tomasello is excluded from the visualization to improve readability, since they are connected to all nodes in the network.

All Works

20 of 20 papers shown
1.
Tomasello, Michael, et al.. (2024). Effects of “We”-framing and partner number on 2- and 3-year-olds’ sense of commitment. Cognitive Development. 72. 101511–101511. 2 indexed citations
2.
O’Madagain, Cathal, et al.. (2022). Great apes and human children rationally monitor their decisions. Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences. 289(1971). 20212686–20212686. 12 indexed citations
3.
Wolf, Wouter, et al.. (2022). Five-year-old children show cooperative preferences for faces with white sclera. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 225. 105532–105532. 7 indexed citations
4.
O’Madagain, Cathal & Michael Tomasello. (2021). Shared intentionality, reason-giving and the evolution of human culture. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences. 377(1843). 20200320–20200320. 33 indexed citations
5.
Tomasello, Michael. (2020). The adaptive origins of uniquely human sociality. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences. 375(1803). 20190493–20190493. 51 indexed citations
6.
Bohn, Manuel, et al.. (2019). Young children spontaneously recreate core properties of language in a new modality. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 116(51). 26072–26077. 23 indexed citations
7.
Krupenye, Christopher, Fumihiro Kano, Satoshi Hirata, Josep Call, & Michael Tomasello. (2016). Great apes anticipate that other individuals will act according to false beliefs. Science. 354(6308). 110–114. 366 indexed citations breakdown →
8.
Behne, Tanya, Ulf Liszkowski, Malinda Carpenter, & Michael Tomasello. (2011). Twelve‐month‐olds’ comprehension and production of pointing. British Journal of Developmental Psychology. 30(3). 359–375. 120 indexed citations
9.
Herrmann, Esther, et al.. (2011). A comparison of temperament in nonhuman apes and human infants. Developmental Science. 14(6). 1393–1405. 54 indexed citations
10.
Vaish, Amrisha, Manuela Missana, & Michael Tomasello. (2010). Three‐year‐old children intervene in third‐party moral transgressions. British Journal of Developmental Psychology. 29(1). 124–130. 185 indexed citations
11.
Liebal, Kristin, Costanza Colombi, Sally J. Rogers, Felix Warneken, & Michael Tomasello. (2007). Cooperative activities in children with autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. 38. 3 indexed citations
12.
Jensen, Keith, Josep Call, & Michael Tomasello. (2007). Chimpanzees Are Rational Maximizers in an Ultimatum Game. Science. 318(5847). 107–109. 242 indexed citations
13.
Okamoto‐Barth, Sanae, Josep Call, & Michael Tomasello. (2007). Great Apes' Understanding of Other Individuals' Line of Sight. Psychological Science. 18(5). 462–468. 69 indexed citations
14.
Warneken, Felix & Michael Tomasello. (2007). Helping and Cooperation at 14 Months of Age. Infancy. 11(3). 271–294. 485 indexed citations
15.
Buttelmann, David, Malinda Carpenter, Josep Call, & Michael Tomasello. (2007). Enculturated chimpanzees imitate rationally. Developmental Science. 10(4). F31–8. 170 indexed citations
16.
Liszkowski, Ulf, Malinda Carpenter, & Michael Tomasello. (2006). Pointing out new news, old news, and absent referents at 12 months of age. Developmental Science. 10(2). F1–7. 117 indexed citations
17.
Diessel, Holger & Michael Tomasello. (2005). A new look at the acquisition of relative clauses. Language. 81(4). 882–906. 176 indexed citations
18.
Tomasello, Michael. (1997). The Pragmatics of Word Learning. 4(1). 59–74. 14 indexed citations
19.
Neisser, Ulric, Eleanor J. Gibson, Marc Jeannerod, et al.. (1994). The Perceived Self. Cambridge University Press eBooks. 168 indexed citations
20.
Tomasello, Michael, et al.. (1990). Young children's conversations with their mothers and fathers: differences in breakdown and repair. Journal of Child Language. 17(1). 115–130. 136 indexed citations

Rankless uses publication and citation data sourced from OpenAlex, an open and comprehensive bibliographic database. While OpenAlex provides broad and valuable coverage of the global research landscape, it—like all bibliographic datasets—has inherent limitations. These include incomplete records, variations in author disambiguation, differences in journal indexing, and delays in data updates. As a result, some metrics and network relationships displayed in Rankless may not fully capture the entirety of a scholar's output or impact.

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