Pascal Molenberghs Ph.D.
Pascal Molenberghs, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at the Institute for Social Neuroscience, Melbourne Australia. He completed his Master in Psychology and PhD in Medical Sciences at the University of Leuven, Belgium. He has since worked at the University of Queensland, Monash University and the University of Melbourne. His research focus is on Social Neuroscience, aiming to understand our social brain. Interests include the neuroscience of empathy, morality, intergroup relations and leadership. His research has been published in the leading neuroscience journals. His work has also featured widely in the media, including stories in Time Magazine, New York Magazine and New Scientist.
What Pascal knows that matters to you: We can feel what others are feeling. This ability, known as affective empathy, is measurable in a part of our brain called the insula. There are different components of empathy and these are represented in different parts of your brain. Understanding these different components and how they operate is important because more empathy is not always beneficial. Our brain processes information from ingroup and outgroup members differently, leading to intergroup conflict and a biased view of the world.