Apr 10, 20225 min read

Empathy

What is Empathy?

Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position. Essentially, it is putting yourself in someone else's position and feeling what they must be feeling. Definitions of empathy encompass a broad range of social, cognitive, and emotional processes primarily concerned with understanding others (and others' emotions in particular).

Empathy vs Sympathy

According to Chloe Chong, a social media expert, there are seven key differences between empathy and sympathy:

Empathy requires active listening. Sympathy requires giving unasked advice or being told what to do.
Sympathy states “I know how you feel”. Empathy states “I feel how you feel”. In this case, having empathy is being more aware of the other person’s feelings, not your own.
Sympathy often involves a lot of judgement. Empathy has none.
Sympathy involves understanding from your own perspective. Empathy involves putting yourself in the other person’s shoes and understanding WHY they may have these particular feelings.
Sympathy’s favorite expression is “poor you”. It creates a sense of pity over the plight of the person. Empathy’s favorite expression is “I can understand how it feels. It must be really hard”. This helps a person to feel heard, understood and validated.
Sympathy focuses on the surface meaning of statements, while empathy is sensitive to non-verbal cues.
Sympathy tends to suppress your own and others emotions. Emotions get pushed aside and avoided until it culminates in an intense fit of pain. Empathy acknowledges your own and others emotions.

Types of Empathy

1. Affective empathy involves the ability to understand another person's emotions and respond appropriately. Such emotional understanding may lead to someone feeling concerned for another person's well-being, or it may lead to feelings of personal distress.

“With this kind of empathy we not only understand a person’s predicament and feel with them, but are spontaneously moved to help, if needed.” This type of empathy enables us to act without being overcome with feeling or jumping straight into a problem solving process.

2. Somatic empathy involves having a sort of physical reaction in response to what someone else is experiencing. People sometimes physically experience what another person is feeling. When you see someone else feeling embarrassed, for example, you might start to blush or have an upset stomach.

“When you feel physically along with the other person, as though their emotions were contagious.” This type of empathy can also extend to physical sensations, which is why we cringe when someone else stubs their toe. In this case, you would look inwards to identify a situation where you were similarly anxious about the future. The situation itself need not be identical, as each individual is different. What’s important is that the emotions resulting from the situation are the same.

3. Cognitive empathy involves being able to understand another person's mental state and what they might be thinking in response to the situation. This is related to what psychologists refer to as theory of mind, or thinking about what other people are thinking.

“Simply knowing how the other person feels and what they might be thinking. Sometimes called perspective-taking.” If you imagine yourself in your friend’s shoes, you know she is likely to be feeling sad, as well as anxious because she relies on that income to pay her student loans. However, having only cognitive empathy keeps you at a distance from your friend. To truly connect with your friend, you need to share their feelings. This is where emotional empathy comes in.

The ability to have Empathy

Some of the different factors that play a role in the tendency to feel include:

How people perceive the other person
How people attribute the other individual's behaviors
What people blame for the other person's predicament
Past experiences and expectations

At the most basic level, there appear to be two main factors that contribute to the ability to experience empathy: genetics and socialization (AKA nature and nurture).

Parents pass down genes that contribute to overall personality, including the propensity toward sympathy, empathy, and compassion. On the other hand, people are also socialized by their parents, peers, communities, and society. How people treat others as well as how they feel about others is often a reflection of the beliefs and values that were instilled at a very young age.

Research has found that there are gender differences in the experience and expression of empathy, although these findings are somewhat mixed. Women score higher on empathy tests, and studies suggest that women tend to feel more cognitive empathy than men.

Barriers to Empathy

Cognitive Biases

Sometimes the way people perceive the world around them is influenced by a number of cognitive biases. For example, people often attribute other people's failures to internal characteristics, while blaming their own shortcomings on external factors.

These biases can make it difficult to see all the factors that contribute to a situation and make it less likely that people will be able to see a situation from the perspective of another.

Dehumanization

Many also fall victim to the trap of thinking that people who are different from them also don't feel and behave the same as they do. This is particularly common in cases when other people are physically distant.

For example, when they watch reports of a disaster or conflict in a foreign land, people might be less likely to feel empathy if they think that those who are suffering are fundamentally different from themselves.

Victim Blaming

Sometimes when another person has suffered a terrible experience, people make the mistake of blaming the victim for their circumstances. This is the reason why victims of crimes are often asked what they might have done differently to prevent the crime.

This tendency stems from the need to believe that the world is a fair and just place. People want to believe that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get—it fools them into thinking that such terrible things could never happen to them.

Why is Empathy important?

Human beings are certainly capable of selfish, even cruel, behavior. A quick scan of any daily newspaper quickly reveals numerous unkind, selfish, and heinous actions. The question then is why don't we all engage in such self-serving behavior all the time? What is it that causes us to feel another's pain and respond with kindness?

Empathy allows people to build social connections with others. By understanding what people are thinking and feeling, people are able to respond appropriately in social situations. Research has shown that having social connections is important for both physical and psychological well-being.
Empathizing with others helps you learn to regulate your own emotions. Emotional regulation is important in that it allows you to manage what you are feeling, even in times of great stress, without becoming overwhelmed.
Empathy promotes helping behaviors. Not only are you more likely to engage in helpful behaviors when you feel empathy for other people, but other people are also more likely to help you when they experience empathy.

Tips for Practicing Empathy

Empathy is a skill that you can learn and strengthen. If you would like to build your empathy skills, there are a few things that you can do:

Work on listening to people without interrupting
Pay attention to body language and other types of nonverbal communication
Try to understand people, even when you don't agree with them
Ask people questions to learn more about them and their lives
Imagine yourself in another person's shoes

Brené Brown on Empathy

In this animated RSA video, Dr Brené Brown reminds us that we can only create a genuine empathic connection if we are brave enough to really get in touch with our own fragilities.