Rate My Professor Fritz Breithaupt

Breithaupt's research focuses on narrative thinking, empathy, emotions, aesthetics, and their cognitive dimensions, with particular attention to literary authors like Goethe. He directs the Experimental Humanities Laboratory at Penn, where interdisciplinary teams investigate narrative and empathy through experiments, and is affiliated with MindCORE's Interconnected Minds cluster. Key publications include The Narrative Brain: The Stories Our Neurons Tell (Yale University Press, 2025), winner of Austria's Science Book of the Year; The Dark Sides of Empathy (Cornell University Press, 2019); Kulturen der Empathie (Suhrkamp Verlag, 2012); Der Ich-Effekt des Geldes: Zur Geschichte einer Legitimationsfigur (Fischer Verlag, 2008); and Jenseits der Bilder: Goethes Politik der Wahrnehmung (Rombach, 2000). He has edited volumes such as Empathie und Narration (Rombach, 2010) and special issues on narrative empathy. Breithaupt's empirical work, involving thousands of participants in 'telephone game' experiments, reveals that narratives preserve emotional arcs like joy and triumph more than factual details, and he developed the Three-Person Model of Empathy explaining polarization. His contributions appear in journals including PNAS, Cognition and Emotion, and Critical Inquiry, with features in NPR, BBC, Der Spiegel, and Die Zeit. Awards include Indiana University's Trustees Teaching Award (2018, 2014, 2003), Outstanding Junior Faculty Award (2000), Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Fellowship (2009), and Fulbright Grant (1991–1992).