Tania Singer

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Tania Singer
Born 1969
Munich, Germany
Residence Leipzig, Germany
Nationality German
Fields Social neuroscience
Institutions Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (professor, director)
Notable awards Otto Hahn Medal of the Max Planck Society for the best dissertation of the year 2000

Tania Singer (born in 1969 in Munich, Germany) is 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[1] and she is recognised as a world expert on empathy.[2] Singer's Caring Economics: Conversations on Altruism and Compassion, Between Scientists, Economists, and the Dalai Lama ' was published in 2015.[3] She is the daughter of the world famous neuroscientist Wolf Singer.

Education and Academic Career

Singer studied psychology 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. After a period spent working first at the 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 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.

Research focus

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.[4]

Singer is a directors board member at the Mind and Life Institute[5] and has worked with the French Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard to investigate brain activity during meditation.[6]

Since 2013 she is the principal investigator of the ReSource Project on neural plasticity after mental training.[7] She investigates with a longitudinal design whether mental training has neural, behavioral, and hormonal effects and whether the subjective well-being and health is changed in participants.

Another research focus is on how social cognition and motivations can explain human social interaction and human economic decision making. The new research programme, funded by the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) in cooperation with Professor Dennis J. Snower, president of the Kiel Institute of World Economy, explores new avenues of how psychological and neuroscientific knowledge about human motivation, emotion, and social cognition can inform models of economic decision making in addressing global economic problems.[8][9]

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.[10] 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.[11]

Awards and selected memberships

  • 2000: Otto Hahn Medal of the Max Planck Society
  • 2011: Honorary Research Fellow at the Laboratory for Social and Neural Systems Research at the University of Zurich, Switzerland
  • Since 2014: Vicepresident of the Board, Mind & Life Europe, Zurich, Switzerland
  • Since 2013: Member, Young Academy of Europe (YAE), Europa
  • Since 2012: Board Member, Mind & Life Institute (MLI), Hadley, MA, USA
  • Since 2011: Member, European Initiative for Integrative Psychological Science, Association for Psychological Science (APS)

Selected publications

A complete publicationlist of Tania Singer can be found on her website.[12]

  • Singer, T. & Ricard, M. (Eds.) (2015). Caring Economics: Conversations on Altruism and Compassion, Between Scientists, Economists, and the Dalai Lama. New York: St Martin's Press.
  • Singer, T. & Bolz, M. (2013). Mitgefühl in Alltag und Forschung. Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. ISBN 978-3-9815612-1-0. E-Book unter compassion-training.org.


  • McCall, C., Hildebrandt, L., Bornemann, B., & Singer, T. (2015). Physiophenomenology in retrospect: Memory reliably reflects physiological arousal during a prior threatening experience. Consciousness and Cognition, 38, 60-70. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2015.09.011.
  • Hoffmann, F., Köhne, S., Steinbeis, N., Dziobek, I., & Singer, T. (2015). Preserved self-other distinction during empathy in autism is linked to network integrity of right supramarginal gyrus. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. doi:10.1007/s10803-015-2609-0.
  • Engen, H. G., Smallwood, J., & Singer, T. (2015). Differential impact of task relevance of emotion on three indices of prioritized processing for facial expressions of fear and anger. Cognition & Emotion. doi:10.1080/02699931.2015.1081873.
  • Steinbeis, N., Engert, V., Linz, R., & Singer, T. (2015). The effects of stress and affiliation on social decision-making: Investigating the tend-and-befriend pattern. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 62, 138-148. doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2015.08.003.
  • Kankse, P., Böckler, A., Trautwein, F.-M., & Singer, T. (2015). Dissecting the social brain: Introducing the EmpaToM to reveal distinct neural networks and brain-behavior relations for empathy and Theory of Mind. NeuroImage, 122, 6-19. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.07.082.
  • Lamm, C., Silani, G., & Singer, T. (2015). Distinct neural networks underlying empathy for pleasant and unpleasant touch. Cortex, 70, 79-89. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2015.01.021.
  • Lumma, A.-L., Kok, B. E., & Singer, T. (2015). Is meditation always relaxing? Investigating heart rate, heart rate variability, experienced effort and likeability during training of three types of meditation. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 97 (1), 38-45. doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2015.04.017.
  • Engen, H. G., & Singer, T. (2015). Compassion-based emotion regulation up-regulates experienced positive affect and associated neural networks. Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 10(9), 1291-1301. doi:10.1093/scan/nsv008.
  • McCall, C., & Singer, T. (2015). Facing off with unfair others: Introducing proxemic imaging as an implicit measure of approach and avoidance during social interaction. PLoS One, 10(2), e0117532. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0117532.
  • Hoffmann, F., Singer, T., & Steinbeis, N. (2015). Children’s increased emotional egocentricity compared to adults is mediated by their difficulties in conflict processing. Child Development, 86 (3), 765-780. doi:10.1111/cdev.12338.
  • Bornemann, B., Herbert, B. M., Mehling, W. E., & Singer, T. (2015). Differential changes in self-reported aspects of interoceptive awareness through three months of contemplative training. Frontiers in Psychology, 5:1504. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01504.
  • Cooper, E. A., Garlick, J., Featherstone, E., Voon, V., Singer, T., Critchley, H. D., et al. (2014). You turn me cold: Evidence for temperature contagion. PLoS One, 9(12), e116126. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0116126.
  • McCall, C., Steinbeis, N., Ricard, M., & Singer, T. (2014). Compassion meditators show less anger, less punishment, and more compensation of victims in response to fairness violations. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 8, 424. doi:10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00424.
  • Engert, V., Smallwood, J., & Singer, T. (2014). Mind your thoughts: Associations between self-generated thoughts and stress-induced and baseline levels of cortisol and alpha-amylase. Biological Psychology, 103, 283-291. doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2014.10.004.
  • Singer, T., & Klimecki, O. (2014). Empathy and Compassion. Current Biology, 24(18), R875-R878. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2014.06.054.
  • Steinbeis, N., Haushofer, J., Fehr, E., & Singer, T. (2014). Development of behavioural control and associated vmPFC-DLPFC connectivity explains children’s increased resistance to temptation in intertemporal choice. Cerebral Cortex. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhu167.
  • Steinbeis, N., & Singer, T. (2014). Projecting my envy onto you: Neurocognitive mechanisms of offline emotional egocentricity bias. NeuroImage. Vol 102. Part 2, 370-380. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.08.007.
  • Steinbeis, N., Bernhardt, B. C., & Singer, T. (2014). Age-related differences in function and structure of rSMG and reduced functional connectivity with DLPFC explains heightened emotional egocentricity bias in childhood. Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 10(2), 302-310. doi:10.1093/scan/nsu057.
  • Engert, V., Plessow, F., Miller, R., Kirschbaum, C., & Singer, T. (2014). Cortisol increase in empathic stress is modulated by social closeness and observation modality. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 45, 192-210. doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2014.04.005.
  • Tusche, A., Smallwood, J., Bernhardt, B. C., & Singer, T. (2014). Classifying the wandering mind: Revealing the affective content of thoughts during task-free rest periods. NeuroImage, 97, 107-116. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.03.076.
  • Engert, V., Merla, A., Grant, J. A., Cardone, D., Tusche, A., & Singer, T. (2014). Exploring the use of thermal infrared imaging in human stress research. PLoS One, 9(3): e90782. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0090782.
  • Bernhardt, B. C., Smallwood, J., Tusche, A., Ruby, F. J. M., Engen, H. G., Steinbeis, N., & Singer, T. (2014). Medial prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortical thickness predicts shared individual differences in self-generated thought and temporal discounting. NeuroImage, 90, 290-297. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.12.040.
  • Klimecki, O. M., Leiberg, S., Ricard, M., & Singer, T. (2014). Differential pattern of functional brain plasticity after compassion and empathy training. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 9(6), 874-879. doi:10.1093/scan/nst060.
  • Bernhardt, B. C., Klimecki, O. M., Leiberg, S., & Singer, T. (2014). Structural covariance networks of dorsal anterior insula predict females' individual differences in empathic responding. Cerebral Cortex, 24(8), 2189-2198. doi:10.1093/cercor/bht072.
  • Bernhardt, B. C., Valk, S. L., Silani, G., Bird, G., Frith, U., & Singer, T. (2014). Selective disruption of socio-cognitive structural brain networks in autism and alexithymia. Cerebral Cortex, 24(12), 3258-3267. doi:10.1093/cercor/bht182.
  • Ruby, F. J. M., Smallwood, J., Sackur, J., & Singer, T. (2013). Is self-generated thought a means of social problem solving? Frontiers in Psychology, 4:962. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00962.
  • Ruby, F. J. M., Smallwood, J., Engen, H., & Singer, T. (2013). How self-generated thought shapes mood – The relation between mind-wandering and mood depends on the socio-temporal content of thoughts. PLoS ONE, 8(10), e77554. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0077554.
  • Silani, G., Lamm, C., Ruff, C. C., & Singer, T. (2013). Right supramarginal gyrus is crucial to overcome emotional egocentricity bias in social judgments. The Journal of Neuroscience, 33(39), 15466-15476. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1488-13.2013.
  • Steinbeis, N. & Singer, T. (2013). The effects of social comparison on social emotions and -behaviour during childhood: The ontogeny of envy and Schadenfreude predicts developmental changes in equity-related decisions. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 115(1), 198-209. doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2012.11.009.
  • Singer, T. & Bolz, M. (2013). Compassion. Bridging Practice and Science. Max Planck Society. ISBN 978-3-9815612-1-0. E-Book downloadable via compassion-training.org.
  • Klimecki, O. M., Leiberg, S., Lamm, C., & Singer, T. (2013). Functional neural plasticity and associated changes in positive affect after compassion training. Cerebral Cortex, 23 (7), 1552-1561. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhs142.
  • Engen, H. G., & Singer, T. (2013). Empathy Circuits. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 23 (2), 275-282. doi:10.1016/j.conb.2012.11.003.
  • Smallwood, J., Ruby, F. J. M., & Singer, T. (2012). Letting go of the present: Task unrelated thought is associated with reduced delay discounting. Consciousness and Cognition, 22 (1), 1-7. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2012.10.007.
  • Przyrembel, M., Smallwood, J., Pauen, M., & Singer, T. (2012). Illuminating the dark matter of social neuroscience: Considering the problem of social interaction from philosophical, psychological, and neuroscientific perspectives. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 6(190).
  • Bernhardt, B. C., & Singer, T. (2012). The neural basis of empathy. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 35, 1-23. doi:10.1146/annurev-neuro-062111-150536.
  • McCall, C., & Singer, T. (2012). The animal and human neuroendocrinology of social cognition, motivation and behavior. Nature Neuroscience. Review, 15(5), 681–688. doi:10.1038/nn.3084.
  • Singer, T. (2012). The past, present and future of social neuroscience: A European perspective. NeuroImage, 61 (2), 437-449. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.01.109.
  • Steinbeis, N., Bernhardt, B. C., & Singer, T. (2012). Impulse control and underlying functions of the left DLPFC mediate age-related and age-independent individual differences in strategic social behavior. Neuron, 73(5), 1040-1051. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2011.12.027.
  • Hein, G., Lamm, C., Brodbeck, C., & Singer, T. (2011). Skin conductance response to the pain of others predicts later costly helping. PLoS One, 6(8). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0022759.
  • 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. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0017798.
  • 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. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2010.10.014.
  • 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. doi:10.1093/brain/awq060.
  • 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. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2010.09.003.
  • 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. doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04418.x
  • 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. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2009.05.001.
  • 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. doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04733.x.
  • 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. doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2006.06.011.
  • de Vignemont, F., & Singer, T. (2006). The empathic brain: How, when and why? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10 (10), 435–441. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2006.08.008.
  • 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. doi:10.1038/nature04271.
  • 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. doi:10.1126/science.1093535.
  • 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. doi:10.1016/S0896-6273(04)00014-5
  • 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. doi:10.1037/0882-7974.18.2.318.

References

  1. ↑ http://www.cbs.mpg.de/depts/singer
  2. ↑ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthieu-ricard/could-compassion-meditati_b_751566.html
  3. ↑ [1]
  4. ↑ http://www.cbs.mpg.de/depts/singer Tania Singer’s Homepage at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences
  5. ↑ http://www.mindandlife.org/ a
  6. ↑ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthieu-ricard/could-compassion-meditati_b_751566.html
  7. ↑ Resource Projekt am Max-Planck-Institut für Kognitions- und Neurowissenschaften, abgerufen am 8. Januar 2015
  8. ↑ http://www.caring-economics.org
  9. ↑ http://www.cbs.mpg.de/depts/singer/1socialcognew/@@index.html
  10. ↑ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4313263 msnbc.com
  11. ↑ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4620922.stm BBC News
  12. ↑ Vollständige Publikationsliste Link

External links

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