Mark Sabbagh

Mark Sabbagh

Professor, Coordinator of Graduate Studies

Department of Psychology

People Directory Affiliation Category

B.A., University of California, 1993
M.A., University of Oregon, 1996
Ph.D., University of Oregon, 1998

Lab Site

Curriculum Vitae [PDF]

Name Pronunciation Guide:
"mark SA-buh"

Click below to hear pronunciation

Research Interests

Theory of mind, social learning, executive functioning, and conceptual change in preschool aged children. Also: Theory of mind and social functioning in adults

Recent Publications

Sjaarda, C. P., Sabbagh, M. A., Wood, S., Ward-King, J., McNaughton, A., J. M., Hudson, M. L., Tao, M., Ayub, M., & Liu, X. (2019). Homozygosity for the 10-repeat dopamine transporter (DAT1) allele is associated with reduced EEG response in males with ASD. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 60, 25-35.

Shamblaw, A., Benson, J. E., Harkness, K. L., & Sabbagh, M. A. (2019). Maternal depression and preschoolers' false belief understanding. Social Development. Click to read this publication: doi.org/10.1111/sode.12369

Hudson, C. C., Shamblaw, A., Wilson, G. A., Roes, M. M., Sabbagh, M. A., & Harkness, K. L. (2018). Theory of mind, excessive reassurance-seeing, and stress generation in depression: A social-cognitive-interpersonal integration. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 37, 725-750.

Sabbagh, M. A. & Paulus, M. (2018). Editorial: Replication studies of infant false belief. Cognitive Development.

Sabbagh, M. A. & Bowman, L. C. (2018). Theory of mind. In S. Ghetti (Ed.) Stevens' Handbook of Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience (4th ed.). New York: Wiley.

Mangardich, H. M. & Sabbagh, M. A. (2017). Mechanisms of selective social learning: Evidence and implications. To appear in M. M. Saylor & P. Ganea (Eds.) Language and Concept Development from Infancy Through Childhood: Social Motivation, Cognition, and Linguistic Mechanisms of Learning.

Bardikoff, N. F. & Sabbagh, M. A. (2016). The differentiation of executive functioning across development: Insights from developmental cognitive neuroscience. To appear in N. Budwig, E. Turiel, & P. D. Zelazo (Eds.), New Perspectives On Human Development.

Mangardich, H. & Sabbagh, M. A. (2016). Children remember words from ignorant speakers but do not attach meaning: Evidence from event-related potentials. Developmental Science.

Sabbagh, M. A., Koenig, M. A., & Kuhlmeier, V. A. (2016). Conceptual constraints and mechanisms in children's selective social learning. Developmental Science. doi: 10.1111/desc.12415

Schell, V. E. & Sabbagh, M. A. (2016). Theory of mind and communication: Developmental perspectives. To appear in A. Bar-On & D. Ravid (Eds.). Handbook of communication disorders: Theoretical, empirical and applied linguistics perspectives. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.

Sabbagh, M. A. (2015). Dopamine and theory of mind development. In J. Sommerville & J. Decety (Eds.) Social Cognition: Frontiers in Developmental Science. New York: Psychology Press.

Tahiroglu, D., Moses, L. J., Carlson, S. M., Olafson, E., Mahy, C. E. V. & Sabbagh, M. A. (2014). The Children’s Social Understanding Scale: Construction and validation of a parent-report measure for assessing individual differences in children’s theories of mind. Developmental Psychology, 50, 2485-2497.

Mo, S., Su, Y., Sabbagh, M. A., & Xiu, J. (2014). Sentential complements and false belief understanding in Chinese Mandarin-speaking preschoolers: A training study. Cognitive Development, 29, 50-61.

Koenig, M. & Sabbagh, M. A. (2013). Selective Social Learning: New perspectives on learning from others. Developmental Psychology, 49, 399-403.

Henderson, A. M. E., Sabbagh, M. A., & Woodward, A. L. (2013). Preschoolers' selective learning is guided by the principle of relevance, Cognition, 126, 246-257.

Benson, J. E., Sabbagh, M. A., Carlson, S. M. & Zelazo, P. D. (2013). Individual differences in executive functioning predict preschoolers improvement from theory-of-mind training, Developmental Psychology.

Lackner, C. L., Sabbagh, M. A., Hallinan, E., Liu, X., & Holden, J. J. E. (2012). Dopamine receptor D4 gene variation predicts preschoolers' developing theory of mind. Developmental Science, 15, 272-280.