Humans are social beings and are burdened by loneliness. We suffer from it both psychologically and through physical illness. Scientists of the MPI for Human Cognitive Brain Sciences have now shown that a form of social connected meditation (the dyad) can decrease the feeling of loneliness. 

The Top 10 Insights from the “Science of a Meaningful Life” in 2016. Tania Singer’s findings on different effects of different types of meditation are featured in this summary article on wellbeing sciences of 2016. 

ManagerMagazin selects Tania Singer as one of the 75 most influential women to the german economy for her influence of challenging the classical model of Homo Economicus with “caring economics”.  

Bethany E. Kok and Tania Singer publish new results from the ReSource Project in JAMA Psychiatry in a paper titled “Effects of Contemplative Dyads on Engagement and Perceived Social Connectedness Over 9 Months of Mental Training”. 

An interview with BBC World Service – CrowdScience on the question “Does it pay to be nice?” and exploring whether being a team player and putting yourself second is really the best strategy from a scientific perspective.

An interview with Tania Singer for “Scobel: The Power of Good” [Scobel: Die Kraft des Guten] on 3Sat — a program about challenging the selfish gene theory and discussing effective altruism with various guests. (German)

A documentation on the topic “Empathy” published to the arte series “Xenius” on the 2nd of November 2016. This documentation features an interview with Tania Singer.

An online-article written by Kira M. Newman about the manuscript from Kok & Singer (2016) recently published in the journal Mindfulness. The article is about the effects and advantages of different types of meditation.  

Tania Singer helped organize the “Power and Care” Conference in Brussels, Belgium in September 2016 together with members of Mind and Life Europe. Power and Care was a three-day Mind and Life Dialogue with world-experts and his Holiness the Dalai Lama.

The first MLE Hub Meeting of the European Neurophenomonolgy, Contemplative, and Embodied Cognition Network (ENCECON Workshop). The overall aim of the network is to support European scientists engaged in empirical and theoretical research on embodied cognition, contemplative neuroscience, and neurophenomenology.

An article about the paper “Are strong empathizers better mentalizers? Evidence for independence and interaction between the routes of social cognition”. People who can put themselves into other peoples’ shoes do not necessarily have to understand them well. On the contrary: excessive empathy can even impair understanding. 

Helpfulness has so far been measured in very different ways by the various scientific disciplines – always assuming that they are investigating the same thing. Scientists have now brought order to the methods. Altruism can now be specifically measured. (German)

Pain is composed of general building blocks, which also occur with other similar feelings, and specific components. We flinch when we observe someone accidentally hitting his thumb with the hammer. Is that pain we feel? (German)

The human being — a selfish being that only thinks about itself and its own wellbeing? Or is acting out of selfless motivation a key human element? The new documentary “The Revolution of the Selfless” [Die Revolution der Selbstlosen] is released on ARTE on the 26th February 2016 at 21:45.

The German Business Journalism site “manager magazin” has elected Tania Singer as one of the 50 most influential women in the German economy.