Podcast pick: Philipp Kanske on empathy in the WDR 5 Podcast "Innenwelt"

What makes a person empathic – and can empathy be trained? These questions are at the heart of the latest episode of Innenwelt – The Psychology Podcast by WDR 5, featuring Prof. Philipp Kanske.

In the approximately 50-minute episode, Philipp Kanske discusses how science defines empathy and how its cognitive and emotional processes can be studied. He explains how empathy can be detected in the brain, when people are perceived as particularly empathic, and to what extent women and men differ in their empathic abilities. The episode also explores whether we accurately assess our own capacity for empathy – and, in particular, how empathy can be trained and why self-empathy is important as well.

The episode offers an engaging insight into current empathy research and shows how fundamental psychological and neuroscientific research can be connected to questions from everyday life.

🎧 The podcast is available in the WDR Mediathek.