Tania Singer
Encyclopedia
Tania Singer is the director of the Department of Social Neuroscience
at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences
in Leipzig
, Germany. Her research focuses on the developmental, neuronal, and hormonal mechanisms underlying human social behaviour and she is recognised as a world expert on empathy
.
at the Philipps University of Marburg from 1989 to 1992. From 1992 to 1996 she studied psychology, media psychology
and media counselling at the Technical University of Berlin
, graduating with a M.S. (German: Diplom
) in 1996. Between 1996 and 2000, she was a predoctoral fellow
at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development
in Berlin. After receiving her PhD
from the Free University of Berlin
in 2000, she continued to work at the Max Planck Institute as a research scientist at the Center for Lifespan Psychology.
Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience
and then at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience in London, UK, she moved to the University of Zurich
, Switzerland, as an assistant professor. From 2007 to 2009, she was co-director of the Laboratory for Social and Neural Systems Research and in 2008 she held the Inaugural Chair of Social Neuroscience
and Neuroeconomics
at the University of Zurich. In 2010 she became a director at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany. In 2011, she received an honorary professorship from the University of Leipzig, Germany, and the Humboldt University, Berlin. She is also an honorary research fellow at the Laboratory for Social and Neural Systems Research at the University of Zurich.
Tania Singer’s work examines human social behaviour using an interdisciplinary approach. In particular, her work focuses on social cognition
, social moral emotions such as empathy
, compassion, envy and fairness, social decision making
, and communication
. She is interested in the determinants of cooperation and prosocial behavior
as well as the breakdown of cooperation and the emergence of selfish behaviour. Her research uses a range of methods including functional magnetic resonance imaging
, virtual reality
environments, biological markers such as cortisol
, and behavioural studies.
In a paper published in the journal Science
in 2004, Singer showed that some pain-sensitive regions of the brain were also activated when volunteers experienced their partners feeling pain. In follow-up studies, published in the journals Nature
and Neuron
, she showed that empathy-related brain responses are influenced by the perceived fairness of others, and whether a target belonged to an ingroup or outgroup
, respectively.
Singer is a fellow at the Mind and Life Institute
and has worked with the French Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard
to investigate brain activity during meditation.
• Lamm, C., Decety, J., & Singer, T. (2011). Meta-analytic evidence for common and distinct neural networks associated with directly experienced pain and empathy for pain. NeuroImage, 54 (3), 2492–2502.
• Bird, G., Silani, G., Brindley, R., White, S., Frith, U., & Singer, T. (2010). Empathic brain responses in insula are modulated by levels of alexithymia but not autism. Brain, 133 (5), 1515–1525.
• Hein, G., Silani, G., Preuschoff, K., Batson, C. D., & Singer, T. (2010). Neural responses to the suffering of ingroup and outgroup members' suffering predict individual differences in costly helping. Neuron, 68 (1), 149–160.
• Singer, T., & Lamm, C. (2009). The social neuroscience of empathy. The Year in Cognitive Neuroscience 2009: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1156 , 81–96.
• Singer, T., Critchley, H. D., & Preuschoff, K. (2009). A common role of insula in feelings, empathy and uncertainty. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13 (8), 334–340.
• Singer, T., & Steinbeis, N. (2009). Differential roles of fairness- and compassion-based motivations for cooperation, defection, and punishment. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1167 (1), 41–50.
• Singer, T. (2006). The neuronal basis and ontogeny of empathy and mind reading: Review of literature and implications for future research. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 30 (6), 855–863.
• de Vignemont, F., & Singer, T. (2006). The empathic brain: How, when and why? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10 (10), 435–441.
• Singer, T., Seymour, B., O'Doherty, J. P., Stephan, K. E., Dolan, R. J., & Frith, C. D. (2006). Empathic neural responses are modulated by the perceived fairness of others. Nature, 439, 466–469.
• Singer, T., Seymour, B., O'Doherty, J., Kaube, H., Dolan, R. J., & Frith, C. D. (2004). Empathy for pain involves the affective but not sensory components of pain. Science, 303 (5661), 1157–1162.
• Singer, T., Kiebel, S. J., Winston, J. S., Dolan, R. J., & Frith, C. D. (2004). Brain responses to the acquired moral status of faces. Neuron, 41 (4), 653–662.
• Singer, T., Verhaeghen, P., Ghisletta, P., Lindenberger, U., & Baltes, P. B. (2003). The fate of cognition in very old age: Six-year longitudinal in the Berlin Aging Study (BASE). Psychology and Aging, 18(2), 318–331.
Social neuroscience
Social neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field devoted to understanding how biological systems implement social processes and behavior, and to using biological concepts and methods to inform and refine theories of social processes and behavior. Humans are fundamentally a social species, rather...
at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences
Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences
The Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences is located Leipzig, Germany. The institute was founded in 2004 by a merger between the former Max Planck Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience in Leipzig and the Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research in Munich...
in Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
, Germany. Her research focuses on the developmental, neuronal, and hormonal mechanisms underlying human social behaviour and she is recognised as a world expert on empathy
Empathy
Empathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings that are being experienced by another sapient or semi-sapient being. Someone may need to have a certain amount of empathy before they are able to feel compassion. The English word was coined in 1909 by E.B...
.
Education
Singer studied psychologyPsychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
at the Philipps University of Marburg from 1989 to 1992. From 1992 to 1996 she studied psychology, media psychology
Media Psychology
Media Psychology seeks an understanding of how people perceive, interpret, use, and respond to a media-rich world. In doing so, media psychologists can identify potential benefits and problems and promote the development of positive media ....
and media counselling at the Technical University of Berlin
Technical University of Berlin
The Technische Universität Berlin is a research university located in Berlin, Germany. Translating the name into English is discouraged by the university, however paraphrasing as Berlin Institute of Technology is recommended by the university if necessary .The TU Berlin was founded...
, graduating with a M.S. (German: Diplom
Diplom
A Diplom is an academic degree in the German-speaking countries Germany, Austria, and Switzerland and a similarly named degree in some other European countries including Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Estonia, Finland , Greece, Hungary, Russia, Serbia, Macedonia, Slovenia, and Ukraine...
) in 1996. Between 1996 and 2000, she was a predoctoral fellow
Predoctoral fellow
In the physical sciences, a predoctoral fellow refers to a researcher who has a bachelor's degree, but not a doctorate. As the name implies, predoctoral fellows often use their time as a fellow to develop their skills and resume before applying to graduate school...
at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development
Max Planck Institute for Human Development
The Max Planck Institute for Human Development is located in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in 1963 and is one of 80 institutes in the Max Planck Society ....
in Berlin. After receiving her PhD
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
from the Free University of Berlin
Free University of Berlin
Freie Universität Berlin is one of the leading and most prestigious research universities in Germany and continental Europe. It distinguishes itself through its modern and international character. It is the largest of the four universities in Berlin. Research at the university is focused on the...
in 2000, she continued to work at the Max Planck Institute as a research scientist at the Center for Lifespan Psychology.
Academic Career and Achievements
After a period spent working first at theWellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience
Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging
The Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London is an interdisciplinary centre for neuroimaging research based in London, United Kingdom.Principal investigators working at the Centre include Professors Ray Dolan, Jon Driver, Richard Frackowiak,...
and then at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience in London, UK, she moved to the University of Zurich
University of Zurich
The University of Zurich , located in the city of Zurich, is the largest university in Switzerland, with over 25,000 students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of theology, law, medicine and a new faculty of philosophy....
, Switzerland, as an assistant professor. From 2007 to 2009, she was co-director of the Laboratory for Social and Neural Systems Research and in 2008 she held the Inaugural Chair of Social Neuroscience
Social Neuroscience
Social Neuroscience is the first academic journal dedicated to the topic of social neuroscience and was established in March 2006. It is published by the Psychology Press, a division of Taylor and Francis. The editor is University of Chicago neuroscientist Jean Decety...
and Neuroeconomics
Neuroeconomics
Neuroeconomics is an interdisciplinary field that seeks to explain human decision making, the ability to process multiple alternatives and to choose an optimal course of action. It studies how economic behavior can shape our understanding of the brain, and how neuroscientific discoveries can...
at the University of Zurich. In 2010 she became a director at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany. In 2011, she received an honorary professorship from the University of Leipzig, Germany, and the Humboldt University, Berlin. She is also an honorary research fellow at the Laboratory for Social and Neural Systems Research at the University of Zurich.
Tania Singer’s work examines human social behaviour using an interdisciplinary approach. In particular, her work focuses on social cognition
Social cognition
Social cognition is the encoding, storage, retrieval, and processing, in the brain, of information relating to conspecifics, or members of the same species. At one time social cognition referred specifically to an approach to social psychology in which these processes were studied according to the...
, social moral emotions such as empathy
Empathy
Empathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings that are being experienced by another sapient or semi-sapient being. Someone may need to have a certain amount of empathy before they are able to feel compassion. The English word was coined in 1909 by E.B...
, compassion, envy and fairness, social decision making
Decision making
Decision making can be regarded as the mental processes resulting in the selection of a course of action among several alternative scenarios. Every decision making process produces a final choice. The output can be an action or an opinion of choice.- Overview :Human performance in decision terms...
, and communication
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...
. She is interested in the determinants of cooperation and prosocial behavior
Prosocial behavior
Prosocial behavior, or "voluntary behavior intended to benefit another", consists of actions which "benefit other people or society as a whole," "such as helping, sharing, donating, co- operating, and volunteering." These actions may be motivated by empathy and by concern about the welfare and...
as well as the breakdown of cooperation and the emergence of selfish behaviour. Her research uses a range of methods including functional magnetic resonance imaging
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
Functional magnetic resonance imaging or functional MRI is a type of specialized MRI scan used to measure the hemodynamic response related to neural activity in the brain or spinal cord of humans or other animals. It is one of the most recently developed forms of neuroimaging...
, virtual reality
Virtual reality
Virtual reality , also known as virtuality, is a term that applies to computer-simulated environments that can simulate physical presence in places in the real world, as well as in imaginary worlds...
environments, biological markers such as cortisol
Cortisol
Cortisol is a steroid hormone, more specifically a glucocorticoid, produced by the adrenal gland. It is released in response to stress and a low level of blood glucocorticoids. Its primary functions are to increase blood sugar through gluconeogenesis; suppress the immune system; and aid in fat,...
, and behavioural studies.
In a paper published in the journal Science
Science (journal)
Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is one of the world's top scientific journals....
in 2004, Singer showed that some pain-sensitive regions of the brain were also activated when volunteers experienced their partners feeling pain. In follow-up studies, published in the journals Nature
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
and Neuron
Neuron (journal)
Neuron is a neuroscience scientific journal published by Cell Press. It has been in continuous publication since 1988....
, she showed that empathy-related brain responses are influenced by the perceived fairness of others, and whether a target belonged to an ingroup or outgroup
Ingroups and outgroups
In sociology and social psychology, ingroups and outgroups are social groups to which an individual feels as though he or she belongs as a member, or to which they feel contempt, opposition, or a desire to compete. People tend to hold positive attitudes towards members of their own groups, a...
, respectively.
Singer is a fellow at the Mind and Life Institute
Mind and Life Institute
The Mind and Life Institute is a non-profit organization dedicated to exploring the relationship of science and Buddhism as methodologies in understanding the nature of reality...
and has worked with the French Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard
Matthieu Ricard
Matthieu Ricard is a French Buddhist monk who resides at Shechen Tennyi Dargyeling Monastery in Nepal.Born in Aix-les-Bains, Savoie, France, he is the son of the late Jean-François Revel , a renowned French philosopher, and grew up among the personalities and ideas of French intellectual circles...
to investigate brain activity during meditation.
Selected Works
• Leiberg, S., Klimecki, O., & Singer, T. (2011). Short-term compassion training increases prosocial behavior in a newly developed prosocial game. PLoS One, 6 (3), e17798.• Lamm, C., Decety, J., & Singer, T. (2011). Meta-analytic evidence for common and distinct neural networks associated with directly experienced pain and empathy for pain. NeuroImage, 54 (3), 2492–2502.
• Bird, G., Silani, G., Brindley, R., White, S., Frith, U., & Singer, T. (2010). Empathic brain responses in insula are modulated by levels of alexithymia but not autism. Brain, 133 (5), 1515–1525.
• Hein, G., Silani, G., Preuschoff, K., Batson, C. D., & Singer, T. (2010). Neural responses to the suffering of ingroup and outgroup members' suffering predict individual differences in costly helping. Neuron, 68 (1), 149–160.
• Singer, T., & Lamm, C. (2009). The social neuroscience of empathy. The Year in Cognitive Neuroscience 2009: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1156 , 81–96.
• Singer, T., Critchley, H. D., & Preuschoff, K. (2009). A common role of insula in feelings, empathy and uncertainty. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13 (8), 334–340.
• Singer, T., & Steinbeis, N. (2009). Differential roles of fairness- and compassion-based motivations for cooperation, defection, and punishment. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1167 (1), 41–50.
• Singer, T. (2006). The neuronal basis and ontogeny of empathy and mind reading: Review of literature and implications for future research. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 30 (6), 855–863.
• de Vignemont, F., & Singer, T. (2006). The empathic brain: How, when and why? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10 (10), 435–441.
• Singer, T., Seymour, B., O'Doherty, J. P., Stephan, K. E., Dolan, R. J., & Frith, C. D. (2006). Empathic neural responses are modulated by the perceived fairness of others. Nature, 439, 466–469.
• Singer, T., Seymour, B., O'Doherty, J., Kaube, H., Dolan, R. J., & Frith, C. D. (2004). Empathy for pain involves the affective but not sensory components of pain. Science, 303 (5661), 1157–1162.
• Singer, T., Kiebel, S. J., Winston, J. S., Dolan, R. J., & Frith, C. D. (2004). Brain responses to the acquired moral status of faces. Neuron, 41 (4), 653–662.
• Singer, T., Verhaeghen, P., Ghisletta, P., Lindenberger, U., & Baltes, P. B. (2003). The fate of cognition in very old age: Six-year longitudinal in the Berlin Aging Study (BASE). Psychology and Aging, 18(2), 318–331.