The social brain

How we understand what others think and feel

Philipp Kanske, Speaker of Die Junge Akademie and psychologist and neuroscientist at the Technical University of Dresden, visits the Deutsches Hygiene Museum Dresden as part of the event series diejungeakademie@.

How do we understand what other people think? How do we manage to empathise with others? Our ability to move in social communities depends on having access to these inner, unobservable states of others. The evening will highlight how social neuroscience explores our brain's ability to empathise and adopt perspective. Does the brain reflect what is going on in others? Or does it build abstract theories? People also differ greatly in how well they can think and feel and how problems contribute to the development of mental disorders. In the evening, we will briefly try out practical ways of practising these skills.

Philipp Kanske explores feelings and social understanding. Since 2017, he has been Professor of Clinical Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience at the TU Dresden. The aim of his scientific work is to better understand empathy, the adoption of perspective and the regulation of emotions in order to uncover possibilities for change, including in people with mental disorders. He is the speaker of Die Junge Akademie, as well as holder of the Otto Hahn Medal of the Max Planck Society and the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize of the German Research Foundation.

Due to the risk situation caused by the coronavirus, the lecture at Deutsches Hygiene-Museum Dresden with Philipp Kanske on "The Social Brain" was cancelled in March 2020.

Die Junge Akademie celebrated its 20th birthday in 2020. In the event series diejungeakademie@, the members of Die Junge Akademie invited the public to take part in dialogue on scientific topics at locations outside of the usual scientific environment.