Virginia Tompkins, Ph.D.

Biography

Virginia Tompkins is a professor in the department of psychology at the Ohio State University at Lima. She completed her undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Florida. She earned her B.S. in psychology in 2002, her M.S. in developmental psychology in 2007, and her Ph.D. in developmental psychology in 2009. She joined the Lima campus in the fall of 2009 where she teaches General Psychology, Introduction to Life Span Developmental Psychology, Psychology of Childhood, Psychology of the Adult Years, Psychology of Developmental Disabilities, and Research Methods.

Dr. Tompkins’ research focuses on social cognitive development in early childhood. She is particularly interested in language, literacy, and theory of mind development. She is also interested in how these domains of development are related to one another and to social interactions with parents and teachers. She has an active undergraduate laboratory, frequently supervising students in independent study and thesis work.

Recent Publications

Tompkins, V. (2025). The relation between college education and beliefs about parent discipline. Journal of Adult Development. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10804-025-09529-7

Broeren, M., Gu, Y., Pitt, M., & Tompkins, V. (2025). A script and tutorial for using Rev AI's automatic speech transcription. Infant and Child Development, 34(2), e70007. https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.70007

Tompkins, V., & Feng, X. (2025). Grandparent support moderates the relation between socioeconomic status and children’s cognitive development. Journal of Family Psychology, 39(1), 65–76. https://doi.org/10.1037/fam0001274

Tompkins, V., Montgomery, D. E., Dore, R. A., & Lee, B. K. (2025). Theory of mind and text comprehension across the lifespan: A meta-analysis. Developmental Psychology, 61(6), 1112–1125. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001869 

Montgomery, D. E., Tompkins, V., & Feng, X. (2024). The theory of mind construct in adulthood: Perspective taking in relation to language and executive function. Frontiers in Psychology, 15, 1435685. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1435685

Montgomery, D. E., Tompkins, V., & Benigno, J. P. (2023). Theory of Mind. In J. L. Matson (Ed.). Handbook of Clinical Child Psychology: Integrating Theory and Research into Practice. https://link.springer.com/book/9783031249259 

Tompkins, V. (2022). Relations between the home literacy environment and young children's theory of mind. Cognitive Development, 62, Article 101179. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2022.101179

Tompkins. V., & Villaruel, E. (2022). Parent discipline and pre-schoolers’ social skills. Early Child Development and Care, 192(3), 410-424. https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2020.1763978

Tompkins, V., Montgomery, D., & Blosser, M. (2022). Mother-child talk about mental states: The what, who, and how of conversations about the mind. Social Development, 31(2), 281-302. https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12551

Tompkins, V. (2021). Interviewing culturally diverse individuals as a class. In Wong, M. S., Weiner, L., Cerniak, J. & Yee, L. T. S. (Eds.), Incorporating diversity in classroom settings: Real and engaging examples for various psychology courses. (Vol 1: Ability, age, culture, ethnicity/race, gender, religion, sexual orientation and socioeconomic status) (pp. 103-107). Retrieved from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology website: http://teachpsych.org/ebooks/diverse1 

Tompkins, V., Justice, L. M., & Meyer, K. (2021). Mothers’ sophisticated vocabulary during reminiscing and children’s story comprehension. Early Education and Development, 32(3), 402-420. https://doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2020.1753145

Tompkins, V., Blosser, M. K., & Downing, M. (2020). False belief understanding and narrative comprehension in the preschool years. Cognitive Development, 56, Article 1009336. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2020.100936

Tompkins, V., Duffy, K., Allen, E, and Smith, R. (2019). Who was Abraham Lincoln anyway? Mother-child reminiscing across levels of abstraction. Developmental Psychology, 55, 1493-1508. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000723   

Tompkins, V., Farrar, M. J., & Montgomery, D. E. (2019). Speaking your mind: Language and narrative in young children’s theory of mind development. Advances in Child Development and Behavior, 56, 109-140. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.acdb.2018.11.003