Empathy
« Back to Glossary IndexEmpathy is understanding and sharing another’s feelings and seeing things from their perspective, even without that experience. It’s fundamental to human nature, crucial to social interaction, and part of moral development, altruism, intergroup relations, and inhibited aggressive behavior. Empathy is feeling sad when a friend tells you about a difficult time or understanding the joy a child experiences when receiving a gift. Children show empathy around two, with rudimentary empathy even earlier. Related concepts are sympathy (feeling sorry for someone), social intelligence (ability to connect, work together more effectively), and emotional intelligence (ability to recognize, understand, and manage one’s own and other’s emotions).
Empathy is a broad construct, and different theories emphasize somewhat different components. Difficulties with particular aspects of empathy or social cognition have been studied in conditions including schizophrenia, autism, psychopathy, and narcissistic personality disorder, but these differences are not uniform and should not be treated as a simple absence of empathy. In autism especially, newer research has challenged the idea of a one-sided empathy deficit and emphasized mismatches in communication and understanding between autistic and non-autistic people. Also see: Situational, State, and Empathic Personal Distress. Three main categories of empathy:
- Cognitive empathy or social-cognitive functioning: Understanding another person’s thoughts, beliefs, perspective, or actions. Also see Perspective-Taking or Theory of Mind.
- Emotional empathy or social-affective functioning: Sharing or resonating with another person’s emotional experience.
- Compassionate empathy or empathic concern: Feeling concern for another person, along with a desire to respond.
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