FOR 2293 Active Perception
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Prof. Dr.

Prof. Dr. Markus Paulus

Responsibilities

1.Empathy, prosocial behavior and morality
This research area comprises the origins and the early development of prosocial behavior, in particular
comforting, helping and sharing. From which age and in which situations do young children show
empathic behavior? Why do children help? Under which circumstances do they share with others?
And which expectations do children have regarding the prosocial behavior of others? How do moral
concerns emerge and develop over the first years of life?
2. Social understanding, social learning and cooperative behavior
A long-standing interest is the investigation of the development of action understanding and social
learning, in particular of imitation in infancy and learning through social cues. How are infants
actually able to imitate other people? Why do they imitate some actions but not others? How does an
understanding of other people’s actions develop? And how do these emerging abilities contribute to
young children’s increasing ability to act jointly and cooperate with other people (for instance, solving
a task together)…these are only a few examples of the questions that interest me in this area.
3. Meta-cognition
This research area focuses on the development of metacognition that is our knowledge about our own
cognitive processes (for example, “I know that I don’t know.”). Previous research suggests that
metacognition develops from the primary school age. In our work, we want to investigate the early
development of metacognitive abilities in the preschool age (for example, when/how do children know
that they do not know something). We also want to know to what extent older children and adolescents
(are able to) use their meta-cognitive abilities to direct their own learning behavior.
4. Development of action control
Closely linked to the research questions above, is our interest in the early development of action
control. From which age and in what way do young children learn to control their actions
intentionally? How can developmental differences in action control be explained? What role do social
factors play in the genesis of action control?
5. Systems theoretical approaches and counseling / family therapy
Another field of interest concerns the dynamic systems approach within developmental psychology.
Here we are investigating, for instance, the interaction patterns between children or family members.
Relations to systemic counseling- and therapeutic approaches, such as couple and family therapy, are
of interest.

Contact

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität
Leopoldstraße 13
80802 München

Phone: +49 (0) 89 / 2180 - 5150
Fax: +49 (0) 89 / 2180 - 5355

Further Information

Selected Publications

  • Paulus, M., & Moore, C. (2017). Preschoolers’ generosity increases with understanding of the affective consequences of sharing. Developmental Science, 20, e12417.
  • Paulus, M., Schuwerk, T., Sodian, B., & Ganglmayer, K. (2017). Childrens’ and adults’ use of verbal information to visually anticipate others’ actions: A study on explicit and implicit social-cognitive processing. Cognition, 160, 145-152.
  • Kim, S., Paulus, M., & Kalish, C. (2017). Young children’s reliance on information from inaccurate informants. Cognitive Science, 41, 601-621.
  • Pfundmair, M., Zwarg, C., Paulus, M., & Rimpel, A. (2017). Oxytocin promotes attention to social cues regardless of group membership. Hormones and Behavior, 90, 136-140.
  • Scharpf, F., Paulus, M., & Wörle, M. (2017). The impact of social relationships on Ugandan children’s sharing decisions. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 14, 436-448.
  • Paulus, M. (2016). It’s payback time: Preschoolers selectively request resources from someone they had benefitted. Developmental Psychology, 52, 1299-1306.
  • Paulus, M. (2016). The development of action planning in a joint action context. Developmental Psychology, 52, 1052-1063.
  • Sodian, B., Licata, M., Kristen, S., Paulus, M., Killen, M., & Woodward, A. (2016). Understanding of goals, beliefs, and desires predicts morally relevant Theory of Mind: A longitudinal investigation. Child Development, 87, 1221-1232.
  • Paulus, M. (2016). Friendship trumps neediness: The impact of social relations and others’ wealth on preschool children’s sharing. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 146, 106-120. doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2016.02.001
  • Paulus, M., Murillo, E., & Sodian, B. (2016). When the body reveals the mind: Children’s use of others’ body orientation to understand their focus of attention. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 148, 101-118.
  • Schuwerk, T., Sodian, B., & Paulus, M. (2016). Cognitive mechanisms underlying action prediction in children and adults with autism spectrum condition. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 46, 3623-3639.
  • Paulus, M. (2015). Children’s inequity aversion depends on culture: A cross-cultural comparison. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 132, 240-246. doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2014.12.007
  • Paulus, M. (2015). Psychological and neural correlates of the emergence of morality in toddlers. Proceedings of the National Academcy of Sciences of the United States of America, 112, 12551-12552. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1516744112
  • Verschoor, S.A., Paulus, M., Spape, M., Biro, S., & Hommel, B. (2015). The developing cognitive substrate of sequential action control in 9- to 12-month-olds: Evidence for concurrent activation models. Cognition, 138, 64-78. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2015.01.005
  • Aldaqre, I., Paulus, M., & Sodian, B. (2015). Referential gaze and word learning in adults with autism. Autism, 9, 944-955. doi: 10.1177/1362361314556784
  • Paulus, M., & Moore, C. (2015). Preschool children’s anticipation of recipients’ emotions affects their resource allocations. Social Development, 24, 852-867. doi: 10.1111/sode.12126