| Alison Gopnik | |
|---|---|
| Born | June 16, 1955 Philadelphia |
| Citizenship | American |
| Fields | Developmental psychology |
| Institutions | University of California, Berkeley |
| Alma mater | McGill University, Oxford University |
| Known for | theory of mind, theory theory, causal learning |
Alison Gopnik (June 16, 1955, Philadelphia[1]), daughter of Myrna Gopnik, is an American Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. She is known for her work in the areas of cognitive and language development, specializing in causal learning and theory of mind. She is the author of Words, Thoughts, and Theories, Causal Learning: Psychology, Philosophy, and Computation, The Scientist in the Crib: What Early Learning Tells Us About the Mind, and The Philosophical Baby: What Children's Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love and the Meaning of Life. She received a B.A. in 1975 from McGill University and a Ph.D. in 1980 from Oxford University.
She worked at the University of Toronto before joining the faculty at UC Berkeley in 1988. She was formerly married to George Lewinski and has three sons, including Alexei Gopnik-Lewinski aka Lexxx Luthor (the hip-hop jazz fusion musician), Nicholas Gopnik-Lewinski and Andres Gopnik-Lewinski. She is now married to Alvy Ray Smith. She is the oldest of six siblings that include Blake Gopnik, the Washington Post art critic and Adam Gopnik, a writer for The New Yorker.