empathy in our life essay

Understanding others’ feelings: what is empathy and why do we need it?

Senior Lecturer in Social Neuroscience, Monash University

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Pascal Molenberghs receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC Discovery Early Career Research Award: DE130100120) and Heart Foundation (Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellowship: 1000458).

Monash University provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation AU.

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This is the introductory essay in our series on understanding others’ feelings. In it we will examine empathy, including what it is, whether our doctors need more of it, and when too much may not be a good thing.

Empathy is the ability to share and understand the emotions of others. It is a construct of multiple components, each of which is associated with its own brain network . There are three ways of looking at empathy.

First there is affective empathy. This is the ability to share the emotions of others. People who score high on affective empathy are those who, for example, show a strong visceral reaction when watching a scary movie.

They feel scared or feel others’ pain strongly within themselves when seeing others scared or in pain.

Cognitive empathy, on the other hand, is the ability to understand the emotions of others. A good example is the psychologist who understands the emotions of the client in a rational way, but does not necessarily share the emotions of the client in a visceral sense.

Finally, there’s emotional regulation. This refers to the ability to regulate one’s emotions. For example, surgeons need to control their emotions when operating on a patient.

Another way to understand empathy is to distinguish it from other related constructs. For example, empathy involves self-awareness , as well as distinction between the self and the other. In that sense it is different from mimicry, or imitation.

Many animals might show signs of mimicry or emotional contagion to another animal in pain. But without some level of self-awareness, and distinction between the self and the other, it is not empathy in a strict sense. Empathy is also different from sympathy, which involves feeling concern for the suffering of another person and a desire to help.

That said, empathy is not a unique human experience. It has been observed in many non-human primates and even rats .

People often say psychopaths lack empathy but this is not always the case. In fact, psychopathy is enabled by good cognitive empathic abilities - you need to understand what your victim is feeling when you are torturing them. What psychopaths typically lack is sympathy. They know the other person is suffering but they just don’t care.

Research has also shown those with psychopathic traits are often very good at regulating their emotions .

Why do we need it?

Empathy is important because it helps us understand how others are feeling so we can respond appropriately to the situation. It is typically associated with social behaviour and there is lots of research showing that greater empathy leads to more helping behaviour.

However, this is not always the case. Empathy can also inhibit social actions, or even lead to amoral behaviour . For example, someone who sees a car accident and is overwhelmed by emotions witnessing the victim in severe pain might be less likely to help that person.

Similarly, strong empathetic feelings for members of our own family or our own social or racial group might lead to hate or aggression towards those we perceive as a threat. Think about a mother or father protecting their baby or a nationalist protecting their country.

People who are good at reading others’ emotions, such as manipulators, fortune-tellers or psychics, might also use their excellent empathetic skills for their own benefit by deceiving others.

Interestingly, people with higher psychopathic traits typically show more utilitarian responses in moral dilemmas such as the footbridge problem. In this thought experiment, people have to decide whether to push a person off a bridge to stop a train about to kill five others laying on the track.

The psychopath would more often than not choose to push the person off the bridge. This is following the utilitarian philosophy that holds saving the life of five people by killing one person is a good thing. So one could argue those with psychopathic tendencies are more moral than normal people – who probably wouldn’t push the person off the bridge – as they are less influenced by emotions when making moral decisions.

How is empathy measured?

Empathy is often measured with self-report questionnaires such as the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) or Questionnaire for Cognitive and Affective Empathy (QCAE).

These typically ask people to indicate how much they agree with statements that measure different types of empathy.

The QCAE, for instance, has statements such as, “It affects me very much when one of my friends is upset”, which is a measure of affective empathy.

Cognitive empathy is determined by the QCAE by putting value on a statement such as, “I try to look at everybody’s side of a disagreement before I make a decision.”

Using the QCAE, we recently found people who score higher on affective empathy have more grey matter, which is a collection of different types of nerve cells, in an area of the brain called the anterior insula.

This area is often involved in regulating positive and negative emotions by integrating environmental stimulants – such as seeing a car accident - with visceral and automatic bodily sensations.

We also found people who score higher on cognitive empathy had more grey matter in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex.

This area is typically activated during more cognitive processes, such as Theory of Mind, which is the ability to attribute mental beliefs to yourself and another person. It also involves understanding that others have beliefs, desires, intentions, and perspectives different from one’s own.

Can empathy be selective?

Research shows we typically feel more empathy for members of our own group , such as those from our ethnic group. For example, one study scanned the brains of Chinese and Caucasian participants while they watched videos of members of their own ethnic group in pain. They also observed people from a different ethnic group in pain.

The researchers found that a brain area called the anterior cingulate cortex, which is often active when we see others in pain, was less active when participants saw members of ethnic groups different from their own in pain.

Other studies have found brain areas involved in empathy are less active when watching people in pain who act unfairly . We even see activation in brain areas involved in subjective pleasure , such as the ventral striatum, when watching a rival sport team fail.

Yet, we do not always feel less empathy for those who aren’t members of our own group. In our recent study , students had to give monetary rewards or painful electrical shocks to students from the same or a different university. We scanned their brain responses when this happened.

Brain areas involved in rewarding others were more active when people rewarded members of their own group, but areas involved in harming others were equally active for both groups.

These results correspond to observations in daily life. We generally feel happier if our own group members win something, but we’re unlikely to harm others just because they belong to a different group, culture or race. In general, ingroup bias is more about ingroup love rather than outgroup hate.

Yet in some situations, it could be helpful to feel less empathy for a particular group of people. For example, in war it might be beneficial to feel less empathy for people you are trying to kill, especially if they are also trying to harm you.

To investigate, we conducted another brain imaging study . We asked people to watch videos from a violent video game in which a person was shooting innocent civilians (unjustified violence) or enemy soldiers (justified violence).

While watching the videos, people had to pretend they were killing real people. We found the lateral orbitofrontal cortex, typically active when people harm others, was active when people shot innocent civilians. The more guilt participants felt about shooting civilians, the greater the response in this region.

However, the same area was not activated when people shot the soldier that was trying to kill them.

The results provide insight into how people regulate their emotions. They also show the brain mechanisms typically implicated when harming others become less active when the violence against a particular group is seen as justified.

This might provide future insights into how people become desensitised to violence or why some people feel more or less guilty about harming others.

Our empathetic brain has evolved to be highly adaptive to different types of situations. Having empathy is very useful as it often helps to understand others so we can help or deceive them, but sometimes we need to be able to switch off our empathetic feelings to protect our own lives, and those of others.

Tomorrow’s article will look at whether art can cultivate empathy.

Theory of mind
Emotional contagion
Understanding others' feelings

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Cultivating empathy

Psychologists’ research offers insight into why it’s so important to practice the “right” kind of empathy, and how to grow these skills

Vol. 52 No. 8 Print version: page 44

Personality

In a society marked by increasing division, we could all be a bit more kind, cooperative, and tolerant toward others. Beneficial as those traits are, psychological research suggests empathy may be the umbrella trait required to develop all these virtues. As empathy researcher and Stanford University psychologist Jamil Zaki, PhD, describes it, empathy is the “psychological ‘superglue’ that connects people and undergirds co-operation and kindness” ( The Economist , June 7, 2019). And even if empathy doesn’t come naturally, research suggests people can cultivate it—and hopefully improve society as a result.

“In general, empathy is a powerful predictor of things we consider to be positive behaviors that benefit society, individuals, and relationships,” said Karina Schumann , PhD, a professor of social psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. “Scholars have shown across domains that empathy motivates many types of prosocial behaviors, such as forgiveness, volunteering, and helping, and that it’s negatively associated with things like aggression and bullying.”

For example, research by C. Daniel Batson , PhD, a professor emeritus of social psychology at the University of Kansas, suggests empathy can motivate people to help someone else in need ( Altruism in Humans , Oxford University Press, 2011), and a 2019 study suggests empathy levels predict charitable donation behavior (Smith, K. E., et al., The Journal of Positive Psychology , Vol. 15, No. 6, 2020).

Ann Rumble , PhD, a psychology lecturer at Northern Arizona University, found empathy can override noncooperation, causing people to be more generous and forgiving and less retaliative ( European Journal of Social Psychology , Vol. 40, No. 5, 2010). “Empathic people ask themselves, ‘Maybe I need to find out more before I jump to a harsh judgment,’” she said.

Empathy can also promote better relationships with strangers. For example, Batson’s past research highlights that empathy can help people adopt more positive attitudes and helping behavior toward stigmatized groups, particularly disabled and homeless individuals and those with AIDS ( Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , Vol. 72, No. 1, 1997).

Empathy may also be a crucial ingredient in mitigating bias and systemic racism. Jason Okonofua , PhD, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, has found that teachers are more likely to employ severe discipline with Black students—and that they’re more likely to label Black students as “troublemakers” ( Psychological Science , Vol. 26, No. 5, 2015).

These labels, Okonofua said, can shape how teachers interpret behavior, forging a path toward students’ school failure and incarceration. When Okonofua and his colleagues created an intervention to help teachers build positive relationships with students and value their perspectives, their increased empathy reduced punitive discipline ( PNAS , Vol. 113, No. 19, 2016).

Similarly, Okonofua and colleagues found empathy from parole officers can prevent adults on probation from reoffending ( PNAS , Vol. 118, No. 14, 2021).

In spite of its potential benefits, empathy itself isn’t an automatic path toward social good. To develop empathy that actually helps people requires strategy. “If you’re trying to develop empathy in yourself or in others, you have to make sure you’re developing the right kind,” said Sara Konrath , PhD, an associate professor of social psychology at Indiana University who studies empathy and altruism.

The right kind of empathy

Empathy is often crucial for psychologists working with patients in practice, especially when patients are seeking validation of their feelings. However, empathy can be a draining skill if not practiced correctly. Overidentifying with someone else’s emotions can be stressful, leading to a cardiovascular stress response similar to what you’d experience in the same painful or threatening situation, said Michael J. Poulin , PhD, an associate professor of psychology at the University at Buffalo who studies how people respond to others’ adversity.

Outside of clinical practice, some scholars argue empathy is unhelpful and even damaging. For example, Paul Bloom, PhD , a professor of psychology at Yale University, argues that because empathy directs helping behavior toward specific individuals—most often, those in one’s own group—it may prevent more beneficial help to others ( Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion , Ecco , 2016).

In some cases, empathy may also promote antagonism and aggression (Buffone, A. E. K., & Poulin, M. J., Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin , Vol. 40, No. 11, 2014). For example, Daryl Cameron , PhD, an associate professor of psychology and senior research associate in the Rock Ethics Institute and director of the Empathy and Moral Psychology Lab at Penn State University, has found that apparent biases in empathy like parochialism and the numbness to mass suffering may sometimes be due to motivated choices. He also notes that empathy can still have risks in some cases. “There are times when what looks like empathy promotes favoritism at the expense of the outgroup,” said Cameron.

Many of these negative outcomes are associated with a type of empathy called self-oriented perspective taking—imagining yourself in someone else’s shoes. “How you take the perspective can make a difference,” said John Dovidio , PhD, the Carl I. Hovland Professor Emeritus of Psychology and a professor emeritus in the Institute for Social and Policy Studies and of Epidemiology at Yale University. “When you ask me to imagine myself in another person’s position,” Dovidio said, “I may experience a lot of personal distress, which can interfere with prosocial behaviors.” Taking on that emotional burden, Schumann added, could also increase your own risk for distressing emotions, such as anxiety.

According to Konrath, the form of empathy shown most beneficial for both the giver and the receiver is an other-oriented response. “It’s a cognitive style of perspective taking where someone imagines another person’s perspective, reads their emotions, and can understand them in general,” she said.

Other-oriented perspective taking may result in empathic concern, also known as compassion, which could be seen as an emotional response to a cognitive process. It’s that emotion that may trigger helping behavior. “If I simply understand you’re in trouble, I may not act, but emotion energizes me,” said Dovidio.

While many practitioners may find empathy to come naturally, psychologists’ research can help clinicians guide patients toward other-oriented empathy and can also help practitioners struggling with compassion fatigue to re-up their empathy. According to Poulin, people are more likely to opt out of empathy if it feels cognitively or emotionally taxing, which could impact psychologists’ ability to effectively support their patients.

To avoid compassion fatigue with patients—and maintain the empathy required for helping them—Poulin said it’s important to reflect on the patient’s feeling or experience without necessarily trying to feel it yourself. “It’s about putting yourself in the right role,” he said. “Your goal isn’t to be the sufferer, but to be the caregiver.”

Be willing to grow

Cameron’s research found that the cognitive costs of empathy could cause people to avoid it but that it may be possible to increase empathy by teaching people to do it effectively ( Journal of Experimental Psychology: General , Vol. 148, No. 6, 2019).

Further, research by Schumann and Zaki shows that the desire to grow in empathy can be a driver in cultivating it. They found people can extend empathic effort—asking questions and listening longer to responses—in situations where they feel different than someone, primarily if they believe empathy could be developed with effort ( Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , Vol. 107, No. 3, 2014).

Similarly, Erika Weisz , PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in psychology at Harvard University, said that the first step to increasing your empathy is to adopt a growth mindset—to believe you’re capable of growing in empathy.

“People who believe that empathy can grow try harder to empathize when it doesn’t come naturally to them, for instance, by empathizing with people who are unfamiliar to them or different than they are, compared to people who believe empathy is a stable trait,” she said.

For example, Weisz found addressing college students’ empathy mindsets increases the accuracy with which they perceive others’ emotions; it also tracks with the number of friends college freshmen make during their first year on campus ( Emotion , online first publication, 2020).

Expose yourself to differences

To imagine another’s perspective, the more context, the better. Shereen Naser , PhD, a professor of psychology at Cleveland State University, said consuming diverse media—for example, a White person reading books or watching movies with a non-White protagonist—and even directly participating in someone else’s culture can provide a backdrop against which to adopt someone else’s perspective.

When you’re in these situations, be fully present. “Paying attention to other people allows you to be moved by their experiences,” said Sara Hodges , PhD, a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon. “Whether you are actively perspective-taking or not, if you just pay more attention to other people, you’re likely to feel more concerned for them and become more involved in their experiences.”

For example, in a course focused on diversity, Naser encourages her graduate students to visit a community they’ve never spent time in. “One student came back saying they felt like an outsider when they attended a Hindu celebration and that they realized that’s what marginalized people feel like every day,” she said. Along with decreasing your bias, such realizations could also spark a deeper understanding of another’s culture—and why they might think or feel the way they do.

Read fiction

Raymond Mar , PhD, a professor of psychology at York University in Toronto, studies how reading fiction and other kinds of character-driven stories can help people better understand others and the world. “To understand stories, we have to understand characters, their motivations, interactions, reactions, and goals,” he said. “It’s possible that while understanding stories, we can improve our ability to understand real people in the real world at the same time.”

When you engage with a story, you’re also engaging the same cognitive abilities you’d use during social cognition ( Current Directions in Psychological Science , Vol. 27, No. 4, 2018). You can get the same effect with any medium—live theater, a show on Netflix, or a novel—as long as it has core elements of a narrative, story, and characters.

The more one practices empathy (e.g., by relating to fictional characters), the more perspectives one can absorb while not feeling that one’s own is threatened. “The foundation of empathy has to be a willingness to listen to other peoples’ experiences and to believe they’re valid,” Mar said. “You don’t have to deny your own experience to accept someone else’s.”

Harness the power of oxytocin

The social hormone oxytocin also plays a role in facilitating empathy. Bianca Jones Marlin , PhD, a neuroscientist and assistant professor of psychology at Columbia University, found that mice that had given birth are more likely to pick up crying pups than virgin animals and that the oxytocin released during the birth and parenting process actually changes the hearing centers of the brain to motivate prosocial and survival behaviors ( Nature , Vol. 520, No. 7548, 2015).

Oxytocin can also breed helping responses in those who don’t have a blood relationship; when Marlin added oxytocin to virgin mice’s hearing centers, they took care of pups that weren’t theirs. “It’s as if biology has prepared us to take care of those who can’t take care of themselves,” she said. “But that’s just a baseline; it’s up to us as a society to build this in our relationships.”

Through oxytocin-releasing behaviors like eye contact and soft physical touch, Marlin said humans can harness the power of oxytocin to promote empathy and helping behaviors in certain contexts. Oxytocin is also known to mediate ingroup and outgroup feelings.

The key, Marlin said, is for both parties to feel connected and unthreatened. To overcome that hurdle, she suggests a calm but direct approach: Try saying, “I don’t agree with your views, but I want to learn more about what led you to that perspective.”

Identify common ground

Feeling a sense of social connection is an important part of triggering prosocial behaviors. “You perceive the person as a member of your own group, or because the situation is so compelling that your common humanity is aroused,” Dovidio said. “When you experience this empathy, it motivates you to help the other person, even at a personal cost to you.”

One way to boost this motivation is to manipulate who you see as your ingroup. Jay Van Bavel , PhD, an associate professor of psychology and neural science at New York University, found that in the absence of an existing social connection, finding a shared identity can promote empathy ( Journal of Experimental Social Psychology , Vol. 55, 2014). “We find over and over again when people have a common identity, even if it’s created in the moment, they are more motivated to get inside the mind of another person,” Van Bavel said.

For example, Van Bavel has conducted fMRI research that suggests being placed on the same team for a work activity can increase cooperation and trigger positive feelings for individuals once perceived as outgroup, even among different races ( Psychological Science , Vol. 19, No. 11, 2008).

To motivate empathy in your own interactions, find similarities instead of focusing on differences. For instance, maybe you and a neighbor have polar opposite political ideologies, but your kids are the same age and go to the same school. Build on that similarity to create more empathy. “We contain multiple identities, and part of being socially intelligent is finding the identity you share,” Van Bavel said.

Ask questions

Existing research often measures a person’s empathy by accuracy—how well people can label someone’s face as angry, sad, or happy, for example. Alexandra Main , PhD, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of California, Merced, said curiosity and interest can also be an important component of empathy. “Mind reading isn’t always the way empathy works in everyday life. It’s more about actively trying to appreciate someone’s point of view,” she said. If you’re in a situation and struggling with empathy, it’s not necessarily that you don’t care—your difficulty may be because you don’t understand that person’s perspective. Asking questions and engaging in curiosity is one way to change that.

While Main’s research focuses on parent-child relationships, she says the approach also applies to other relationship dynamics; for example, curiosity about why your spouse doesn’t do the dishes might help you understand influencing factors and, as a result, prevent conflict and promote empathy.

Main suggests asking open-ended questions to the person you want to show empathy to, and providing nonverbal cues like nodding when someone’s talking can encourage that person to share more. Certain questions, like ones you should already know the answer to, can have the opposite effect, as can asking personal questions when your social partner doesn’t wish to share.

The important thing is to express interest. “These kinds of behaviors are really facilitative of disclosure and open discussion,” Main said. “And in the long term, expressing interest in another person can facilitate empathy in the relationship” ( Social Development , Vol. 28, No. 3, 2019).

Understand your blocks

Research suggests everyone has empathy blocks, or areas where it is difficult to exhibit empathy. To combat these barriers to prosocial behavior, Schumann suggests noticing your patterns and focusing on areas where you feel it’s hard to connect to people and relate to their experiences.

If you find it hard to be around negative people, for example, confront this difficulty and spend time with them. Try to reflect on a time when you had a negative outlook on something and observe how they relate. And as you listen, don’t interrupt or formulate rebuttals or responses.

“The person will feel so much more validated and heard when they’ve really had an opportunity to voice their opinion, and most of the time people will reciprocate,” Schumann said. “You might still disagree strongly, but you will have a stronger sense of why they have the perspective they do.”

Second-guess yourself

Much of empathy boils down to willingness to learn—and all learning involves questioning your assumptions and automatic reactions in both big-picture issues, such as racism, and everyday interactions. According to Rumble, it’s important to be mindful of “what-ifs” in frustrating situations before jumping to snap judgments. For example, if a patient is continually late to appointments, don’t assume they don’t take therapy seriously––something else, like stress or unreliable transportation, might be getting in the way of their timeliness.

And if you do find yourself making a negative assumption, slow down and admit you could be wrong. “As scientists, we second-guess our assumptions all the time, looking for alternative explanations,” said Hodges. “We need to do that as people, too.”

What Is Empathy?

How it helps strengthen our relationships

Verywell / Bailey Mariner

Influential Factors
Lack of Empathy

Empathizing with others is essential for healthy relationships and communication. After all, it's hard to know how to relate to others if you can't understand their feelings.

Empathy is the ability to emotionally understand what other people feel, see things from their point of view, and imagine yourself in their place. Essentially, it is putting yourself in someone else's position and feeling what they are feeling.

The term empathy was first introduced in 1909 by psychologist Edward B. Titchener as a translation of the German term einfühlung (meaning "feeling into").

Empathy means that when you see another person suffering, such as after they've lost a loved one , you can envision yourself going through that same experience and feel what they are going through.

While people can be well-attuned to their feelings and emotions, getting into someone else's head can be more difficult. The ability to feel empathy allows people to "walk a mile in another's shoes," so to speak. It permits people to understand the emotions that others are feeling.

Press Play for Advice on Empathy

Hosted by therapist Amy Morin, LCSW, this episode of The Verywell Mind Podcast , featuring empathy expert Dr. Kelsey Crowe, shares how you can show empathy to someone who is going through a hard time. Click below to listen now.

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Signs of Empathy

For many, seeing another person in pain and responding with indifference or even outright hostility seems utterly incomprehensible. But the fact that some people do respond in such a way clearly demonstrates that empathy is not necessarily a universal response to the suffering of others.

If you are wondering whether you are an empathetic person, here are some signs that show that you have this tendency:

You are good at really listening to what others have to say.
People often tell you about their problems.
You are good at picking up on how other people are feeling.
You often think about how other people feel.
Other people come to you for advice.
You often feel overwhelmed by tragic events.
You try to help others who are suffering.
You are good at telling when people aren't being honest .
You sometimes feel drained or overwhelmed in social situations.
You care deeply about other people.
You find it difficult to set boundaries in your relationships.

Are You an Empath? Take the Quiz!

Our fast and free empath quiz will let you know if your feelings and behaviors indicate high levels of traits commonly associated with empaths.

Types of Empathy

Empathy can come in different forms, depending on the situations. Some of the different types of empathy that you might experience are:

Affective Empathy

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.

Somatic Empathy

Somatic empathy involves having a 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.

Cognitive Empathy

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 the theory of mind or thinking about what other people are thinking.

Empathy vs. Sympathy vs. Compassion

While sympathy and compassion are related to empathy, there are important differences. Compassion and sympathy are often thought to be more of a passive connection, while empathy generally involves a much more active attempt to understand another person.

The Many Benefits of Empathy

Being able to experience empathy has many beneficial uses. It's the ability that helps us see and feel what others might be experiencing. Because we relate to them, we can then respond in ways that foster stronger relationships.

It Strengthens your Relationships

Empathy allows you to build social connections with others. By understanding what people are thinking and feeling, you are able to respond appropriately in social situations. Research has shown that having social connections is important for both physical and psychological well-being.

It Helps You Regulate Your Emotions

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.

Research also suggests that our ability to regulate our own emotions influences how we respond to other people's emotions. Strengthening your self-regulation skills may be helpful if you want to boost your ability to empathize.

It Compels Us to Help Others

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.

Research supports the idea that empathy is a key driver of prosocial behavior. Empathy helps us notice other people's needs, understand their distress, and inspire us to alleviate their suffering.

Impact of Empathy

Your ability to experience empathy can impact your relationships. Studies involving siblings have found that when empathy is high, siblings have less conflict and more warmth toward each other. In romantic relationships, having empathy increases your ability to extend forgiveness .

Can You Have Too Much Empathy?

Having a great deal of empathy makes you concerned for the well-being and happiness of others. It also means, however, that you can sometimes get overwhelmed, burned out , or even overstimulated from always thinking about other people's emotions. This can lead to empathy fatigue.

Empathy fatigue, also known as compassion fatigue , refers to the emotional and physical exhaustion you might feel after repeatedly being exposed to stressful or traumatic events . You might also feel numb or powerless, isolate yourself, and have a lack of energy.

Empathy fatigue is a concern in certain situations, such as when acting as a caregiver . Studies also show that if healthcare workers can't balance their feelings of empathy (affective empathy, in particular), it can result in compassion fatigue as well.

Other research has linked higher levels of empathy with a tendency toward emotional negativity , potentially increasing your risk of empathic distress. It can even affect your judgment, causing you to go against your morals based on the empathy you feel for someone else.

Factors That Can Influence Empathy

Not everyone experiences empathy in every situation. Some people may be more naturally empathetic in general, but people also tend to feel more empathetic toward some people and less so toward others. Some of the factors that play a role in this tendency include:

How you perceive the other person
How you attribute the other individual's behaviors
What you blame for the other person's predicament
Your past experiences and expectations

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.

At the most basic level, there appear to be two main factors that contribute to the ability to experience empathy: genetics and socialization. Essentially, it boils down to the age-old relative contributions of nature and nurture .

Parents pass down genes that contribute to overall personality, including the propensity toward sympathy, empathy, and compassion. For example, research indicates that key traits known as the Big Five personality traits are between 31% and 41% heritable. Being high in traits like conscientiousness and agreeableness can contribute to increased feelings of empathy for others.

On the other hand, people are also socialized by their parents, peers, communities, and society. How people treat others and how they feel about others often reflect the beliefs and values that were instilled at a very young age.

Reasons People Sometimes Lack Empathy

Some people lack empathy and, therefore, aren't able to understand what another person may be experiencing or feeling. This can result in behaviors that seem uncaring or sometimes even hurtful. For instance, people with low affective empathy have higher rates of cyberbullying .

A lack of empathy is also one of the defining characteristics of narcissistic personality disorder . Though, it is unclear whether this is due to a person with this disorder having no empathy at all or having more of a dysfunctional response to others.

A few reasons why people sometimes lack empathy include cognitive biases, dehumanization, and victim-blaming.

Cognitive Biases

Sometimes the way people perceive the world around them is influenced by 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. They also make it less likely that people will be able to see a situation from the perspective of another.

Dehumanization

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

Othering is a way of excluding people from the in-group, which can then contribute to dehumanization. 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 those 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 that 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. It is the desire to believe that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get—and it can fool you into thinking that such terrible things could never happen to you.

What Causes Empathy?

Human beings are certainly capable of selfish, even cruel, behavior. A quick scan of the news 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 ?

Several different theories have been proposed to explain why people experience empathy.

Neuroscientific Explanations

Studies have shown that specific areas of the brain play a role in how empathy is experienced. More recent approaches focus on the cognitive and neurological processes that lie behind empathy. Researchers have found that different regions of the brain play an important role in empathy, including the anterior cingulate cortex and the anterior insula.

Research suggests that there are important neurobiological components to the experience of empathy. The activation of mirror neurons in the brain plays a part in the ability to mirror and mimic the emotional responses that people would feel if they were in similar situations.

Functional MRI research also indicates that an area of the brain known as the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) plays a critical role in the experience of empathy. Studies have found that people who have damage to this area of the brain often have difficulty recognizing emotions conveyed through facial expressions .

Emotional Explanations

Some of the earliest explorations into the topic of empathy centered on how feeling what others feel allows people to have a variety of emotional experiences. The philosopher Adam Smith suggested that it allows us to experience things that we might never otherwise be able to fully feel.

This can involve feeling empathy for both real people and imaginary characters. Experiencing empathy for fictional characters allows people to have a range of emotional experiences that might otherwise be impossible.

Prosocial Explanations

Sociologist Herbert Spencer proposed that empathy served an adaptive function and aided in the survival of the species. Empathy leads to helping behavior, which benefits social relationships. Humans are naturally social creatures. Things that aid in our relationships with other people benefit us as well.

When people experience empathy, they are more likely to engage in prosocial behaviors that benefit other people. Things such as altruism and heroism are also connected to feeling empathy for others.

Tips for Practicing Empathy

Fortunately, 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 and utilize empathic listening
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
Strengthen your connection with others to learn more about how they feel
Seek to identify biases you may have and how they affect your empathy for others
Look for ways in which you are similar to others versus focusing on differences
Be willing to be vulnerable , opening up about how you feel
Engage in new experiences, giving you better insight into how others in that situation may feel
Get involved in organizations that push for social change

While empathy might be lacking in some, most people are able to empathize with others in a variety of situations. This ability to see things from another person's perspective and empathize with another's emotions plays an important role in our social lives. Empathy allows us to understand others and, quite often, compels us to take action to relieve another person's suffering.

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Thompson NM, Uusberg A, Gross JJ, Chakrabarti B. Empathy and emotion regulation: An integrative account . Prog Brain Res . 2019;247:273-304. doi:10.1016/bs.pbr.2019.03.024

Decety J, Bartal IB, Uzefovsky F, Knafo-Noam A. Empathy as a driver of prosocial behaviour: Highly conserved neurobehavioural mechanisms across species . Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci . 2016;371(1686):20150077. doi:10.1098/rstb.2015.0077

Lam CB, Solmeyer AR, McHale SM. Sibling relationships and empathy across the transition to adolescence . J Youth Adolescen . 2012;41:1657-1670. doi:10.1007/s10964-012-9781-8

Kimmes JG, Durtschi JA. Forgiveness in romantic relationships: The roles of attachment, empathy, and attributions . J Marital Family Ther . 2016;42(4):645-658. doi:10.1111/jmft.12171

Cleveland Clinic. Empathy fatigue: How stress and trauma can take a toll on you .

Duarte J, Pinto-Bouveia J, Cruz B. Relationships between nurses' empathy, self-compassion and dimensions of professional quality of life: A cross-sectional study . Int J Nursing Stud . 2016;60:1-11. doi:10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2016.02.015

Chikovani G, Babuadze L, Iashvili N, Gvalia T, Surguladze S. Empathy costs: Negative emotional bias in high empathisers . Psychiatry Res . 2015;229(1-2):340-346. doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2015.07.001

Kret ME, De Gelder B. A review on sex difference in processing emotional signals . Neuropsychologia . 2012; 50(7):1211-1221. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.12.022

Sanchez-Roige S, Gray JC, MacKillop J, Chen CH, Palmer AA. The genetics of human personality . Genes Brain Behav . 2018;17(3):e12439. doi:10.1111/gbb.12439

Song Y, Shi M. Associations between empathy and big five personality traits among Chinese undergraduate medical students . PLoS One . 2017;12(2):e0171665. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0171665

Schultze-Krumbholz A, Scheithauer H. Is cyberbullying related to lack of empathy and social-emotional problems? Int J Develop Sci . 2013;7(3-4):161-166. doi:10.3233/DEV-130124

Baskin-Sommers A, Krusemark E, Ronningstam E. Empathy in narcissistic personality disorder: From clinical and empirical perspectives . Personal Dis Theory Res Treat . 2014;5(3):323-333. doi:10.1037/per0000061

Decety, J. Dissecting the neural mechanisms mediating empathy . Emotion Review . 2011; 3(1): 92-108. doi:10.1177/1754073910374662

Shamay-Tsoory SG, Aharon-Peretz J, Perry D. Two systems for empathy: A double dissociation between emotional and cognitive empathy in inferior frontal gyrus versus ventromedial prefrontal lesions . Brain . 2009;132(PT3): 617-627. doi:10.1093/brain/awn279

Hillis AE. Inability to empathize: Brain lesions that disrupt sharing and understanding another's emotions . Brain . 2014;137(4):981-997. doi:10.1093/brain/awt317

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Adam Smith's moral and political philosophy .

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

How Empathy Can Save the World

An interview with belinda bauman on why this virtue is more important than ever..

Posted July 29, 2019

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We live in a world full of suffering—it would be difficult for anyone to spend even a few moments reading through news headlines and argue against that.

How we choose to respond to the difficult realities all around us is crucial, and in her new book, Brave Souls: Experiencing the Audacious Power of Empathy (InterVarsity Press), author Belinda Bauman aims to widen our understanding of this virtue that she believes has the power to transform the world as well as our own hearts.

Belinda is no stranger to suffering as the founder of One Million Thumbprints, a movement of peacemakers advocating with women in the world's worst conflict zones, and yet it was just a few years ago that her eyes opened to the true meaning and power of empathy.

She shared with me what set this journey in motion and why we need empathy now more than ever. This is part one of the interview; look for part two tomorrow.

Some folks are saying empathy as we know it is dying. Why write a book about empathy now?

Shockingly, today’s young people measure 40 percent less empathetic than the two generations that immediately preceded them. The Sesame Street generation grew up being admonished by teachers, parents, and coaches with the question, “How would you feel if it was you?"

This once-staple understanding of what it meant to be a loving, caring human is morphing before our eyes, moving through various phases, from, “Why should I care if it’s not my problem?” to the battle cry of today: “Why waste empathy on people who don’t deserve it?”

We are tired and discouraged. We are depressed and more polarized than ever, outrage is more blatant, and public shaming is on the rise. We are living in what Natasha Puri, a Human Rights Advocate and empathy innovator, calls an “ apathy epidemic .” Indifference—or apathy, which literally means “without feeling”—is rampant.

And the saddest part is this: We don’t care that we don’t care. We need empathy more than ever, yet people are giving up because their version of empathy can’t meet the intensity of our need.

Brave Souls is a “permission slip” for those who are hungry for something more than angry protest or group air-hugs, and for those of us who worry we have sold our souls for a thumbs-up from those who already agree or a better argument than the other guy. It is for those of us who want the real thing, who want to take audacious risks, and who aren’t willing to give up on making a beautiful, lasting mark on this world.

You open the book with your “Mother’s Day Epiphany” that changed everything for you. Could you briefly share about what happened that day, and how it set this journey in motion?

Ah, yes. Mother’s Day, 2013. While my two boys were trundling up the stairs to bring me breakfast, my husband, Stephan, quietly slipped the day’s newspaper next to my eggs. The headline read, “Congo: The Worst Place in the World to Be a Mother.”

I’m always up for being the activist, but I remember thinking, This is Mother’s Day! I ended up crying into my coffee.

God knows my life needed disrupting. Even though I had been working in and out of conflict zones for a decade at this point—including one country over from the Congo—l knew little about the overwhelming odds women face there in a raging, protracted, unforgiving war.

Little did I know how my Mother’s Day would open a doorway to one of the most disruptive, transformative forces in my life.

One year later, I found myself sitting on a wooden bench in a rural church at the heart of Congo’s decades-long conflict, listening to the pain-filled stories of moms, grandmothers, sisters, and daughters.

It was here I learned how to love again from a woman named Hope . Esperance (French for hope ) lives in one of the deadliest places in the world—Rutshuru, Congo, where " rape is cheaper than bullets. " Esperance told me how she watched her husband die at the hand of rebels; how she was repeatedly and violently beaten, stripped, raped, then abandoned in the forest where she would have died of blunt force trauma and blood loss had her sisters not rescued her.

Because Esperance is pre-literate, she had her pastor write these words on a piece of paper: “Tell the world my story.” Underneath, she stamped her thumbprint. Her thumbprint became my mandate to tell the story of violence against women worldwide.

Now, people who start to read my book may roll their eyes and say, “Ah I have heard this before: “ Sheltered White Woman Shocked Into Reality After Meeting Congo War Survivor .” I would roll my eyes, too, if it were true. But my story was different.

War wasn’t new to me. I had lived and worked in some of the world’s worst conflicts, with the suffering of women all around me. It wasn’t Esperance’s suffering that changed me, it was her response to suffering .

At the time, my own responses to suffering were less than stellar. I had become an expert at looking really good on the outside, while reaching for coping mechanisms on the inside.

I generally landed on three high-functioning yet dysfunctional strategies of relating, none of which was love:

First, I would reach for sympathy , a quick fix to relieve guilt . Sympathy says, “I really care, but I really don’t need to know,” and does very little to actually help the situation.
Then, I would reach for apathy or camouflaged indifference. Apathy says, “I know, but I don’t really care.” It informs itself and may even diagnose the issues, but remains distant, even if only emotionally, from the person who suffers.
Finally, if nothing else was working, I would reach for antipathy , justifying my anger somehow. Antipathy says, “I don’t know, and I don’t care.” In the end, antipathy is just self-righteousness, and usually aggravates the suffering of others.

None of these ways of relating changed my life or the lives I sought to help. Only authentic love, in the form of empathy, could do that. The empathy I re-discovered was so much more than I thought it was, or what people told me it was.

How do you understand the concept of empathy differently now than you did before?

Empathy is not a personality trait, character bent, or rare, magical gift for only a few. It’s not for saints or gurus. It isn’t for the politically correct or incorrect. Empathy is for everyone, because empathy is skill-based. It can—and, for the sake of our world, must—be learned and regularly practiced by everyone.

Empathy is firmly rooted in both spirituality and science. Behind its complexity lies order, simplicity, even beauty. Empathy not only makes us better at being human but helps us to love, practically, in ways that bring lasting change in even the hardest of circumstances.

Without empathy, we isolate, grow fearful, begin to hate, and ultimately fight. Or we convince ourselves we are loving one another when we’re really not. Relationships fall apart, grow cold, or stagnate. People stop caring. Many give up. Some take revenge . Nations start wars.

We cannot meet our turbulent times with apathy, or anger, or well-meaning sympathy. The only virtue muscular enough to meet the complexity of our times is empathy. Brave, audacious empathy has the power to change the world, and us.

Part two of this interview, which explores how we can move from apathy to empathy, will be posted soon.

Jamie Aten , Ph.D. , is the founder and executive director of the Humanitarian Disaster Institute at Wheaton College.

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Empathy 101: 3+ Examples and Psychology Definitions

Has a book, film, or photograph ever driven you to tears?

Or have you ever felt driven to ease someone else’s emotions?

If you have answered yes to at least one of these, then you have experienced empathy.

Empathy is a complex psychological process that allows us to form bonds with other people. Through empathy, we cry when our friends go through hard times, celebrate their successes, and rage during their times of hardship. Empathy also allows us to feel guilt, shame, and embarrassment, as well as understand jokes and sarcasm.

In this article, we explore empathy, its benefits, and useful ways to measure it. We also look at empathy fatigue – a common experience among clinicians and people in the caring professions – and provide beneficial resources.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Emotional Intelligence Exercises for free . These science-based exercises will not only enhance your ability to understand and work with your emotions but will also give you the tools to foster the emotional intelligence of your clients, students, or employees.

This Article Contains

What is empathy in psychology, the empathy quotient, 7 real-life examples, is it important 3+ benefits of empathy, empathy vs sympathy and compassion, assessing empathy: 4 helpful questionnaires, a note on empathy fatigue, positivepsychology.com resources, a take-home message.

In psychology, empathy is loosely defined as an ability to understand and experience someone else’s feelings and to adopt someone else’s viewpoint (Colman, 2015). The term ‘empathy’ comes from the German word Einfuhlung, which means “projecting into” (Ganczarek, Hünefeldt, & Belardinelli, 2018) and may explain why empathy is considered the ability to place yourself in someone else’s shoes.

Difficulties with defining empathy

Defining empathy clearly and exhaustively enough to be studied in psychology is difficult. For example, is empathy the ability to understand or feel or share or interpret someone else’s feelings?

Each of these verbs differs slightly, providing a different meaning to empathy. As a result, the underlying psychological mechanism and part of the brain responsible for empathy also differ.

Part of the difficulty defining empathy is that it comprises multiple components. For example, Hoffman (1987) argued that empathy in children develops across four different stages and that each stage lays down the foundation for the next.

These four stages are:

Global empathy or ‘emotion contagion,’ where one person’s emotion evokes the same emotional reaction in another person (or the observer).
Attention to others’ feelings, where the observer is aware of another person’s feelings but doesn’t mirror them.
Prosocial actions, where the observer is aware of another person’s feelings and behaves in a way to comfort the other person.
Empathy for another’s life condition, where the observer feels empathy toward someone else’s broader life situation, rather than their immediate situation right at this instance.

Fletcher-Watson and Bird (2020) provide an excellent overview of the challenges associated with defining and studying empathy. They argue that empathy results from a four-step process:

Step 1: Noticing/observing someone’s emotional state
Step 2: Correctly interpreting that emotional state
Step 3: ‘Feeling’ the same emotion
Step 4: Responding to the emotion

Empathy is not achieved if any of these four steps fail.

This multi-component conception of empathy is echoed across other research. For example, Decety and Cowell (2014) also posit that empathy arises from multiple processes interacting with each other.

These processes are:

Emotional: The ability to share someone else’s feelings
Motivational: The need to respond to someone else’s feelings
Cognitive: The ability to take someone else’s viewpoint

Part of this confusion stems from their corresponding definitions.

Empathy is the ability to share someone else’s emotions and perspectives. Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand, interpret, and manage other people’s emotions, as well as your own. This last inclusion – your own emotions – is what distinguishes emotional intelligence from empathy.

The Empathy Quotient is a measurement of empathy (Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004). It is akin to the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) but is a measure of empathy rather than intelligence. Like IQ, higher scores of the Empathy Quotient are meant to represent higher abilities of empathy.

Importantly, the Empathy Quotient differs from the Emotional Quotient. Emotional Quotient is measured using the BarOn Emotional Quotient-Inventory (Bar-On, 2004) and aims to measure emotional intelligence rather than empathy. It’s easy to confuse them because “EQ” is used to refer to both.

To determine whether the Empathy Quotient is a suitable test of empathy, Baron-Cohen and Wheelwright (2004) administered the measurement to a group of neurotypical people and a group of people diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and compared their scores.

On average, individuals with Asperger syndrome scored significantly lower than neurotypical people. From this study, a score of 30 was determined to be a critical cut-off mark. Scores less than 30 were typically found among the participants with Asperger syndrome. Furthermore, the test-retest reliability of the Empathy Quotient was high, suggesting that the test reliably measures empathy.

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Since empathy is so complex and involved in so many social interactions, there are many examples of empathy in the real world.

In a discussion with a friend, have you ever felt so moved that you experienced the same emotion that they did? Or maybe a friend shared a cringe-worthy story of sheer humiliation, and that feeling was mirrored in you.

These situations when you experienced the same emotions as your friends are examples of empathy. Other examples of empathy include understanding someone else’s point of view during an argument, feeling guilty when you realize why someone might have misunderstood what you said, or realizing something you said was a faux pas . These scenarios require you to take someone else’s viewpoint.

Some of the best examples of empathy can be found in the work by Oliver Sacks and Atul Gawande. Sacks was a neurologist who had a profound impact through his thoughtful, patient-driven books on the field of psychiatry and neuropsychology.

Atul Gawande is a surgeon who worked with the World Health Organization and has published several books on improving healthcare and healthcare systems. Both authors address their patients in a sensitive, thoughtful manner that evokes a lot of empathy in the reader.

The following books are highly recommended:

Awakenings by Oliver Sacks
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks
Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

We participate in many scenarios in which we convey and receive information with other people, verbally and nonverbally.

Regardless of whether or not these interactions are important, we have to perceive, interpret, and respond to numerous cues.

Empathy is more than ‘just’ the ability to feel what someone else is feeling. Empathy is an essential skill that allows us to effectively engage with other people in social contexts (Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004).

Without empathy, we would struggle to:

understand other people’s feelings, motivations, and behaviors;
respond appropriately to someone else’s feelings; and
understand social interactions that rely on subtle behaviors, cues, and social norms, such as jokes, faux pas, and sarcasm.

The ability to respond appropriately to someone else’s emotions is extremely important for forming bonds. Empathy underlines the bond that forms between parent and child (Decety & Cowell, 2014).

Some researchers even consider some aspects of empathy to be a defining feature of humans. Our ability to consider another person’s viewpoint is considered uniquely human (Decety & Cowell, 2014).

Jean Decety and Jason Cowell (2014) argue that empathy is one process that contributes to understanding and engaging in complex social behavior, such as prosocial behavior, which includes volunteering as well as providing care for people who are terminally ill.

Earlier in this article, we mentioned the studies by Baron-Cohen and Wheelwright (2004) in which they compared Empathy Quotient scores between people with Asperger syndrome and neurotypical people.

People on the autism–Asperger spectrum are believed to have a diminished capacity for empathy and, as a result, struggle with social contexts. However, their lower empathy scores do not mean that they are without feeling or should be considered psychopaths (who also have lower scores of empathy).

People on the autism spectrum often report that their intention is not to hurt other people’s feelings, and they feel guilty if they caused someone else’s hurt feelings (Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004).

Furthermore, people on the autism spectrum often report that they want human connections; however, they struggle to make them because they are not aware of how their behavior affects how other people perceive them (Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004). This shows how important empathy is in developing relationships and interpreting subtle social cues.

The three terms – empathy, sympathy, and compassion – are often confused with each other, because they are often used when referring to someone else’s feelings. For example, in response to a friend’s bad news, do you feel empathy, sympathy, or compassion? The terms are used in similar contexts, but they refer to different behaviors.

From the definitions provided above, empathy involves interpreting, understanding, feeling, and acting on other people’s feelings. Empathy is a multidimensional process and relies on affective, cognitive, behavioral, and moral components (Jeffrey, 2016). Remember, empathy is the ability to adopt someone else’s viewpoint or to put yourself into someone else’s shoes.
Sympathy is the feeling of pity for someone else’s misfortune or circumstances.
Compassion is the desire and act of wanting to alleviate someone else’s suffering. Compassion includes the affective components of empathy and sympathy, but it is accompanied by an action to change the circumstances of the person who is suffering (Sinclair et al., 2017). A compassionate act can also result in our suffering alongside the other person; this is referred to as co-suffering. Compassion is also linked to altruistic behavior (Jeffrey, 2016).

Examples of Empathy vs Sympathy vs Compassion

To further cement the difference between these three terms, consider the following examples:

Emma relays a recent event where she was extremely embarrassed. As she retells the story, her friend, Tamika, groans and mutters “Oh my word, I would feel so embarrassed. I would want the world to swallow me whole!”

In this example, Tamika doesn’t actually want to disappear into a hole. Instead, she’s correctly understanding and interpreting the situation that Emma found herself in. She is most likely experiencing empathy for Emma’s situation. She is not feeling pity, nor is she acting compassionately.

Jerome’s mother recently suffered a near-fatal heart attack. He listens to his mother retell her sisters about her experience. As she recounts her experience, she starts crying, because she was so afraid, and she realized that she might never see her loved ones again. Jerome starts crying as he listens to his mother.

In this example, Jerome is feeling sympathy (pity) for his mother and what she went through.

On his route to university, Jamal sees the same homeless man every day. The homeless man sits in the same place, regardless of the weather, with a sign next to him that asks for assistance. Jamal decides to donate some of his clothing to the homeless man.

Jamal’s behavior is an act of compassion . By donating his clothing, he is trying to alleviate the homeless man’s suffering. He may also be experiencing sympathy towards the man, but the act of trying to change the man’s situation is an act of compassion.

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Use these questionnaires to determine what your current level of empathy is.

Empathy Quotient

The Empathy Questionnaire (EmQue)

The Empathy Questionnaire (EmQue), designed by Rieffe, Ketelaar, and Wiefferink (2010), measures empathy in young children (average age of around 30 months) and reflects Hoffman’s (1987) theory of how empathy developed in children.

The questionnaire comprises three subscales, which map onto the first three stages of empathy development posited by Hoffman (1987). The questionnaire correlates well with other measures that aim to capture similar constructs. You can access this questionnaire on the Academia website .

The Empathy Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (EmQue-CA)

A similar version of the EmQue also exists for older children. This version is known as the Empathy Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (EmQue-CA; Overgaauw, Rieffe, Broekhof, Crone, & Güroğlu, 2017).

Unlike the EmQue, the EmQue-CA is a self-report measure. In other words, the adolescents and children must answer how much they agree with each statement, rather than their parents observing their behaviors.

The final version of the EmQue-CA measures the following three subscales: affective empathy, cognitive empathy, and intention to comfort. The 14 questions and the psychometric properties of the questionnaire are reported in the original paper, which can be accessed on the Frontiers in Psychology website as a free downloadable PDF .

The Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ)

The Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ) was developed by refining a collection of questionnaires that measure empathy into a core set of questions (Spreng, McKinnon, Mar, & Levine, 2009).

Researchers collected questions from multiple empathy questionnaires, administered these questions to a large sample of students, and then using exploratory factor analysis, refined the questions to a core set of 16.

The questionnaire and scoring rules are described in the appendix of the original paper (Spreng et al., 2009), which can be accessed on the Measurement Instrument Database for the Social Sciences .

Finally, the TEQ and the Empathy Quotient have a strong, positive correlation, confirming that the questions in both measure the same psychological construct.

Empathy is often confused with sympathy, which involves a lack of truly understanding another person’s experience.

For instance, if your friend recently lost their job, expressing sympathy would include feeling sorry for them and wishing them luck finding another job.

In contrast, empathy entails relating to your friend’s frustrations and fears about unemployment and actively experiencing those negative emotions by putting yourself in their shoes.

An example of compassion would be assisting your friend in applying for other jobs and updating their resume.

While empathy and sympathy drive acts of compassion, compassion stands out due to its proactive nature of motivating individuals to alleviate suffering.

Recognizing the distinctions between sympathy, empathy, and compassion can help you adjust your emotional responses when someone is going through hardship, enabling you to provide better support.

Feeling empathy is a very useful skill, especially for health professionals such as clinicians, therapists, and psychologists. But the ability to feel empathy for other people comes at the cost of empathy fatigue.

Empathy fatigue refers to the feeling of exhaustion that health professionals experience in response to constantly revisiting their emotional wounds through their clients’ experience (Stebnicki, 2000). For example, a therapist whose client is going through bereavement may be reminded of their own grief and trauma.

By being emotionally available for their client through emotional and stressful periods, the therapist experiences fatigue at a psychological, emotional, and physiological level (Stebnicki, 2000).

Besides manifesting as a sense of fatigue, we can consider empathy fatigue as a form of re-trauma, and as a result, the symptoms resemble that of secondary traumatic stress disorder.

Empathy fatigue in the clinical domain is also referred to as ‘counselor impairment’ because the clinician’s ability to perform their job is impaired (Stebnicki, 2007). An outcome of empathy fatigue is burnout, with a particularly sudden onset (Stebnicki, 2000).

Stebnicki (2007) provides a comprehensive list of strategies that clinicians can use to prevent empathy fatigue:

Self-awareness of the symptoms of empathy fatigue
Self-care strategies and lifestyle behaviors that protect the clinician from empathy fatigue
Using a support group and supervisor during periods of empathy fatigue

Finally, PositivePsychology.com’s post detailing self-care for therapists can be easily adapted to other industries. For example, these tips could be incorporated into a wellness session in the workplace to help prevent empathy fatigue.

17 Exercises To Develop Emotional Intelligence

These 17 Emotional Intelligence Exercises [PDF] will help others strengthen their relationships, lower stress, and enhance their wellbeing through improved EQ.

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Below is a list of four items, each targeting a different aspect of empathy.

To help children better understand what is meant by empathy, we recommend the What is Empathy? worksheet. In this worksheet, children are asked to recall scenarios when they experienced a similar emotion as someone else. Children are also asked to think of reasons why empathy is a good thing and how they can improve their sense of empathy.

To practice looking at things from a fresh perspective, we recommend the 500 Years Ago Worksheet and the Trading Places Worksheet. Both worksheets can be used in group exercises, but only the second one is also appropriate for individual clients.

In five steps, the Listening Accurately Worksheet lays out an easy-to-follow guide to better develop empathy through active listening .

This worksheet is especially useful for clinicians and health professionals but is also very appropriate for anyone working in a profession where they need to communicate with other people constantly.

If you’re looking for more science-based ways to help others develop emotional intelligence, this collection contains 17 validated EI tools for practitioners. Use them to help others understand and use their emotions to their advantage.

If we show a little tolerance and humility, and if we are willing to stand in the other person’s shoes — as my mom would say — just for a moment, stand in their shoes. Because here’s the thing about life: there’s no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days, when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand.

U.S. President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., Inauguration speech

And that is what empathy is: being able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. Humans are social creatures, and empathy is an important skill. Without empathy, we will struggle to connect and form bonds. Underdeveloped empathy results in awkward social interactions, which can also weaken social bonds.

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.

By connecting, by understanding, by having empathy, we can all stand together, lend a hand when needed, and be given a hand when we, in turn, may need it.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Emotional Intelligence Exercises for free .

Bar-On, R. (2004). The Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i): Rationale, description and summary of psychometric properties. In G. Geher (Ed.), Measuring emotional intelligence: Common ground and controversy (pp. 115–145). Nova Science Publishers.
Baron-Cohen, S., & Wheelwright, S. (2004). The Empathy Quotient: An investigation of adults with Asperger syndrome or high functioning autism, and normal sex differences. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders , 34 (2), 163–175.
Colman, A. M. (2015). A dictionary of psychology . Oxford University Press.
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Overgaauw, S., Rieffe, C., Broekhof, E., Crone, E. A., & Güroğlu, B. (2017). Assessing empathy across childhood and adolescence: Validation of the Empathy Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (EmQue-CA). Frontiers in Psychology , 8 , Article 870.
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Im positive that the origin of the word ’empathy’ comes from Greek, with ‘pathos’ being an umbrella word for emotions (sympathy, apathy, antipathy, and from there passion, compassion etc).

It’s important to mention that empathy is not a sign of a weak personality. I did a huge work before I could finally cry when touched by my friend’s story. Because “men shouldn’t show their tears in public.” But don’t you dare tell me how I should react! 😀

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Greater Good Science Center • Magazine • In Action • In Education

The Evolution of Empathy

Once upon a time, the United States had a president known for a peculiar facial display. In an act of controlled emotion, he would bite his lower lip and tell his audience, “I feel your pain.”

Whether the display was sincere is not the issue here; how we are affected by another’s predicament is. Empathy is second nature to us, so much so that anyone devoid of it strikes us as dangerous or mentally ill.

At the movies, we can’t help but get inside the skin of the characters on the screen. We despair when their gigantic ship sinks; we exult when they finally stare into the eyes of a long-lost lover.

We are so used to empathy that we take it for granted, yet it is essential to human society as we know it. Our morality depends on it: How could anyone be expected to follow the golden rule without the capacity to mentally trade places with a fellow human being? It is logical to assume that this capacity came first, giving rise to the golden rule itself. The act of perspective-taking is summed up by one of the most enduring definitions of empathy that we have, formulated by Adam Smith as “changing places in fancy with the sufferer.”

Even Smith, the father of economics, best known for emphasizing self-interest as the lifeblood of human economy, understood that the concepts of self-interest and empathy don’t conflict. Empathy makes us reach out to others, first just emotionally, but later in life also by understanding their situation.

This capacity likely evolved because it served our ancestors’ survival in two ways. First, like every mammal, we need to be sensitive to the needs of our offspring. Second, our species depends on cooperation, which means that we do better if we are surrounded by healthy, capable group mates. Taking care of them is just a matter of enlightened self-interest.

Animal empathy

It is hard to imagine that empathy—a characteristic so basic to the human species that it emerges early in life, and is accompanied by strong physiological reactions—came into existence only when our lineage split off from that of the apes. It must be far older than that. Examples of empathy in other animals would suggest a long evolutionary history to this capacity in humans.

Evolution rarely throws anything out. Instead, structures are transformed, modified, co-opted for other functions, or tweaked in another direction. The frontal fins of fish became the front limbs of land animals, which over time turned into hoofs, paws, wings, and hands. Occasionally, a structure loses all function and becomes superfluous, but this is a gradual process, and traits rarely disappear altogether. Thus, we find tiny vestiges of leg bones under the skin of whales and remnants of a pelvis in snakes.

Over the last several decades, we’ve seen increasing evidence of empathy in other species. One piece of evidence came unintentionally out of a study on human development. Carolyn Zahn-Waxler , a research psychologist at the National Institute of Mental Health , visited people’s homes to find out how young children respond to family members’ emotions. She instructed people to pretend to sob, cry, or choke, and found that some household pets seemed as worried as the children were by the feigned distress of the family members. The pets hovered nearby and put their heads in their owners’ laps.

But perhaps the most compelling evidence for the strength of animal empathy came from a group of psychiatrists led by Jules Masserman at Northwestern University . The researchers reported in 1964 in the American Journal of Psychiatry that rhesus monkeys refused to pull a chain that delivered food to themselves if doing so gave a shock to a companion. One monkey stopped pulling the chain for 12 days after witnessing another monkey receive a shock. Those primates were literally starving themselves to avoid shocking another animal.

The anthropoid apes, our closest relatives, are even more remarkable. In 1925, Robert Yerkes reported how his bonobo, Prince Chim, was so extraordinarily concerned and protective toward his sickly chimpanzee companion, Panzee, that the scientific establishment might not accept his claims: “If I were to tell of his altruistic and obviously sympathetic behavior towards Panzee, I should be suspected of idealizing an ape.”

Nadia Ladygina-Kohts , a primatological pioneer, noticed similar empathic tendencies in her young chimpanzee, Joni, whom she raised at the beginning of the last century, in Moscow. Kohts, who analyzed Joni’s behavior in the minutest detail, discovered that the only way to get him off the roof of her house after an escape—much more effective than any reward or threat of punishment—was by arousing sympathy:

If I pretend to be crying, close my eyes and weep, Joni immediately stops his plays or any other activities, quickly runs over to me, all excited and shagged, from the most remote places in the house, such as the roof or the ceiling of his cage, from where I could not drive him down despite my persistent calls and entreaties. He hastily runs around me, as if looking for the offender; looking at my face, he tenderly takes my chin in his palm, lightly touches my face with his finger, as though trying to understand what is happening, and turns around, clenching his toes into firm fists.

These observations suggest that apart from emotional connectedness, apes have an appreciation of the other’s situation and show a degree of perspective-taking. One striking report in this regard concerns a bonobo female named Kuni , who found a wounded bird in her enclosure at Twycross Zoo, in England. Kuni picked up the bird, and when her keeper urged her to let it go, she climbed to the highest point of the highest tree, carefully unfolded the bird’s wings and spread them wide open, one wing in each hand, before throwing it as hard as she could toward the barrier of the enclosure. When the bird fell short, Kuni climbed down and guarded it until the end of the day, when it flew to safety. Obviously, what Kuni did would have been inappropriate toward a member of her own species. Having seen birds in flight many times, she seemed to have a notion of what would be good for a bird, thus giving us an anthropoid illustration of Smith’s “changing places in fancy.”

This is not to say that all we have are anecdotes. Systematic studies have been conducted on so-called “consolation” behavior. Consolation is defined as friendly or reassuring behavior by a bystander toward a victim of aggression. For example, chimpanzee A attacks chimpanzee B, after which bystander C comes over and embraces or grooms B. Based on hundreds of such observations, we know that consolation occurs regularly and exceeds baseline levels of contact. In other words, it is a demonstrable tendency that probably reflects empathy, since the objective of the consoler seems to be to alleviate the distress of the other. In fact, the usual effect of this kind of behavior is that it stops screaming, yelping, and other signs of distress.

A bottom-up view of empathy

The above examples help explain why to the biologist, a Russian doll is such a satisfying plaything, especially if it has a historical dimension. I own a doll of Russian President Vladimir Putin, within whom we discover Yeltsin, Gorbachev, Brezhnev, Kruschev, Stalin, and Lenin, in that order. Finding a little Lenin and Stalin within Putin will hardly surprise most political analysts. The same is true for biological traits: The old always remains present in the new.

This is relevant to the debate about the origins of empathy, especially because of the tendency in some disciplines, such as psychology, to put human capacities on a pedestal. They essentially adopt a top-down approach that emphasizes the uniqueness of human language, consciousness, and cognition. But instead of trying to place empathy in the upper regions of human cognition, it is probably best to start out examining the simplest possible processes, some perhaps even at the cellular level. In fact, recent neuroscience research suggests that very basic processes do underlie empathy. Researchers at the University of Parma , in Italy, were the first to report that monkeys have special brain cells that become active not only if the monkey grasps an object with its hand but also if it merely watches another do the same. Since these cells are activated as much by doing as by seeing someone else do, they are known as mirror neurons, or “monkey see, monkey do” neurons.

It seems that developmentally and evolutionarily, advanced forms of empathy are preceded by and grow out of more elementary ones. Biologists prefer such bottom-up accounts. They always assume continuity between past and present, child and adult, human and animal, even between humans and the most primitive mammals.

So, how and why would this trait have evolved in humans and other species? Empathy probably evolved in the context of the parental care that characterizes all mammals. Signaling their state through smiling and crying, human infants urge their caregiver to take action. This also applies to other primates. The survival value of these interactions is evident from the case of a deaf female chimpanzee I have known named Krom, who gave birth to a succession of infants and had intense positive interest in them. But because she was deaf, she wouldn’t even notice her babies’ calls of distress if she sat down on them. Krom’s case illustrates that without the proper mechanism for understanding and responding to a child’s needs, a species will not survive.

During the 180 million years of mammalian evolution, females who responded to their offspring’s needs out-reproduced those who were cold and distant. Having descended from a long line of mothers who nursed, fed, cleaned, carried, comforted, and defended their young, we should not be surprised by gender differences in human empathy, such as those proposed to explain the disproportionate rate of boys affected by autism, which is marked by a lack of social communication skills.

Empathy also plays a role in cooperation. One needs to pay close attention to the activities and goals of others to cooperate effectively. A lioness needs to notice quickly when other lionesses go into hunting mode, so that she can join them and contribute to the pride’s success. A male chimpanzee needs to pay attention to his buddy’s rivalries and skirmishes with others so that he can help out whenever needed, thus ensuring the political success of their partnership. Effective cooperation requires being exquisitely in tune with the emotional states and goals of others.

Within a bottom-up framework, the focus is not so much on the highest levels of empathy, but rather on its simplest forms, and how these combine with increased cognition to produce more complex forms of empathy. How did this transformation take place? The evolution of empathy runs from shared emotions and intentions between individuals to a greater self/other distinction—that is, an “unblurring” of the lines between individuals. As a result, one’s own experience is distinguished from that of another person, even though at the same time we are vicariously affected by the other’s. This process culminates in a cognitive appraisal of the other’s behavior and situation: We adopt the other’s perspective.

As in a Russian doll, however, the outer layers always contain an inner core. Instead of evolution having replaced simpler forms of empathy with more advanced ones, the latter are merely elaborations on the former and remain dependent on them. This also means that empathy comes naturally to us. It is not something we only learn later in life, or that is culturally constructed. At heart, it is a hard-wired response that we fine-tune and elaborate upon in the course of our lives, until it reaches a level at which it becomes such a complex response that it is hard to recognize its origin in simpler responses, such as body mimicry and emotional contagion. ( See sidebar .)

Biology holds us “on a leash,” in the felicitous words of biologist Edward Wilson , and will let us stray only so far from who we are. We can design our life any way we want, but whether we will thrive depends on how well that life fits human predispositions.

I hesitate to predict what we humans can and can’t do, but we must consider our biological leash when deciding what kind of society we want to build, especially when it comes to goals like achieving universal human rights.

If we could manage to see people on other continents as part of us, drawing them into our circle of reciprocity and empathy, we would be building upon, rather than going against, our nature.

For instance, in 2004, the Israeli Minister of Justice caused political uproar for sympathizing with the enemy. Yosef Lapid questioned the Israeli army’s plans to demolish thousands of Palestinian homes in a zone along the Egyptian border. He had been touched by images on the evening news. “When I saw a picture on the TV of an old woman on all fours in the ruins of her home looking under some floor tiles for her medicines, I did think, ‘What would I say if it were my grandmother?’” he said. Lapid’s grandmother was a Holocaust victim.

This incident shows how a simple emotion can widen the definition of one’s group. Lapid had suddenly realized that Palestinians were part of his circle of concern, too. Empathy is the one weapon in the human repertoire that can rid us of the curse of xenophobia.

Empathy is fragile, though. Among our close animal relatives, it is switched on by events within their community, such as a youngster in distress, but it is just as easily switched off with regards to outsiders or members of other species, such as prey. The way a chimpanzee bashes in the skull of a live monkey by hitting it against a tree trunk is no advertisement for ape empathy. Bonobos are less brutal, but in their case, too, empathy needs to pass through several filters before it will be expressed. Often, the filters prevent expressions of empathy because no ape can afford feeling pity for all living things all the time. This applies equally to humans. Our evolutionary background makes it hard to identify with outsiders. We’ve evolved to hate our enemies, to ignore people we barely know, and to distrust anybody who doesn’t look like us. Even if we are largely cooperative within our communities, we become almost a different animal in our treatment of strangers. ( See sidebar .)

This is the challenge of our time: globalization by a tribal species. In trying to structure the world such that it suits human nature, the point to keep in mind is that political ideologues by definition hold narrow views. They are blind to what they don’t wish to see. The possibility that empathy is part of our primate heritage ought to make us happy, but we are not in the habit of embracing our nature. When people kill each other, we call them “animals.” But when they give to the poor, we praise them for being “humane.” We like to claim the latter tendency for ourselves. Yet, it will be hard to come up with anything we like about ourselves that is not part of our evolutionary background. What we need, therefore, is a vision of human nature that encompasses all of our tendencies: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Our best hope for transcending tribal differences is based on the moral emotions, because emotions defy ideology. In principle, empathy can override every rule about how to treat others. When Oskar Schindler kept Jews out of concentration camps during World War II, for example, he was under clear orders by his society on how to treat people, yet his feelings interfered.

Caring emotions may lead to subversive acts, such as the case of a prison guard who during wartime was directed to feed his charges only water and bread, but who occasionally sneaked in a hard-boiled egg. However small his gesture, it etched itself into the prisoners’ memories as a sign that not all of their enemies were monsters. And then there are the many acts of omission, such as when soldiers could have killed captives without negative repercussions but decided not to. In war, restraint can be a form of compassion.

Emotions trump rules. This is why, when speaking of moral role models, we talk of their hearts, not their brains (even if, as any neuroscientist will point out, the heart as the seat of emotions is an outdated notion). We rely more on what we feel than what we think when solving moral dilemmas.

It’s not that religion and culture don’t have a role to play, but the building blocks of morality clearly predate humanity. We recognize them in our primate relatives, with empathy being most conspicuous in the bonobo ape and reciprocity in the chimpanzee. Moral rules tell us when and how to apply our empathic tendencies, but the tendencies themselves have been in existence since time immemorial.

About the Author

Frans de Waal

Frans B. M. de Waal, Ph.D., a Dutch-born primatologist, is the C. H. Candler Professor at Emory University and director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta. He is the author of Our Inner Ape and The Bonobo and the Atheist .

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Essays About Empathy: Top 5 Examples Plus Prompts

If you’re writing essays about empathy, check out our essay examples and prompts to get started.

Empathy is the ability to understand and share other people’s emotions. It is the very notion which To Kill a Mockingbird character Atticus Finch was driving at when he advised his daughter Scout to “climb inside [other people’s] skin and walk around in it.”

Being able to feel the joy and sorrow of others and see the world from their perspective are extraordinary human capabilities that shape our social landscape. But beyond its effect on personal and professional relationships, empathy motivates kind actions that can trickle positive change across society.

If you are writing an article about empathy, here are five insightful essay examples to inspire you:

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1. Do Art and Literature Cultivate Empathy? by Nick Haslam

2. empathy: overrated by spencer kornhaber, 3. in our pandemic era, why we must teach our children compassion by rebecca roland, 4. why empathy is a must-have business strategy by belinda parmar, 5. the evolution of empathy by frans de waal, 1. teaching empathy in the classroom., 2. how can companies nurture empathy in the workplace, 3. how can we develop empathy, 4. how do you know if someone is empathetic, 5. does empathy spark helpful behavior , 6. empathy vs. sympathy., 7. empathy as a winning strategy in sports. , 8. is there a decline in human empathy, 9. is digital media affecting human empathy, 10. your personal story of empathy..

“Exposure to literature and the sorts of movies that do not involve car chases might nurture our capacity to get inside the skins of other people. Alternatively, people who already have well-developed empathic abilities might simply find the arts more engaging…”

Haslam, a psychology professor, laid down several studies to present his thoughts and analysis on the connection between empathy and art. While one study has shown that literary fiction can help develop empathy, there’s still lacking evidence to show that more exposure to art and literature can help one be more empathetic. You can also check out these essays about character .

“Empathy doesn’t even necessarily make day-to-day life more pleasant, they contend, citing research that shows a person’s empathy level has little or no correlation with kindness or giving to charity.”

This article takes off from a talk of psychology experts on a crusade against empathy. The experts argue that empathy could be “innumerate, parochial, bigoted” as it zooms one to focus on an individual’s emotions and fail to see the larger picture. This problem with empathy can motivate aggression and wars and, as such, must be replaced with a much more innate trait among humans: compassion.

“Showing empathy can be especially hard for kids… Especially in times of stress and upset, they may retreat to focusing more on themselves — as do we adults.”

Roland encourages fellow parents to teach their kids empathy, especially amid the pandemic, where kindness is needed the most. She advises parents to seize everyday opportunities by ensuring “quality conversations” and reinforcing their kids to view situations through other people’s lenses.

“Mental health, stress and burnout are now perceived as responsibilities of the organization. The failure to deploy empathy means less innovation, lower engagement and reduced loyalty, as well as diluting your diversity agenda.”

The spike in anxiety disorders and mental health illnesses brought by the COVID-19 pandemic has given organizations a more considerable responsibility: to listen to employees’ needs sincerely. Parmar underscores how crucial it is for a leader to take empathy as a fundamental business strategy and provides tips on how businesses can adjust to the new norm.

“The evolution of empathy runs from shared emotions and intentions between individuals to a greater self/other distinction—that is, an “unblurring” of the lines between individuals.”

The author traces the evolutionary roots of empathy back to our primate heritage — ultimately stemming from the parental instinct common to mammals. Ultimately, the author encourages readers to conquer “tribal differences” and continue turning to their emotions and empathy when making moral decisions.

10 Interesting Writing prompts on Essays About Empathy

Check out below our list of exciting prompts to help you buckle down to your writing:

This essay discuss teaching empathy in the classroom. Is this an essential skill that we should learn in school? Research how schools cultivate children’s innate empathy and compassion. Then, based on these schools’ experiences, provide tips on how other schools can follow suit.

An empathetic leader is said to help boost positive communication with employees, retain indispensable talent and create positive long-term outcomes. This is an interesting topic to research, and there are plenty of studies on this topic online with data that you can use in your essay. So, pick these best practices to promote workplace empathy and discuss their effectiveness.

Essays About Empathy: How can we develop empathy?

Write down a list of deeds and activities people can take as their first steps to developing empathy. These activities can range from volunteering in their communities to reaching out to a friend in need simply. Then, explain how each of these acts can foster empathy and kindness.

Based on studies, list the most common traits, preferences, and behaviour of an empathetic person. For example, one study has shown that empathetic people prefer non-violent movies. Expound on this list with the support of existing studies. You can support or challenge these findings in this essay for a compelling argumentative essay. Make sure to conduct your research and cite all the sources used.

Empathy is a buzzword closely associated with being kind and helpful. However, many experts in recent years have been opining that it takes more than empathy to propel an act of kindness and that misplaced empathy can even lead to apathy. Gather what psychologists and emotional experts have been saying on this debate and input your analysis.

Empathy and sympathy have been used synonymously, even as these words differ in meaning. Enlighten your readers on the differences and provide situations that clearly show the contrast between empathy and sympathy. You may also add your take on which trait is better to cultivate.

Empathy has been deemed vital in building cooperation. A member who empathizes with the team can be better in tune with the team’s goals, cooperate effectively and help drive success. You may research how athletic teams foster a culture of empathy beyond the sports fields. Write about how coaches are integrating empathy into their coaching strategy.

Several studies have warned that empathy has been on a downward trend over the years. Dive deep into studies that investigate this decline. Summarize each and find common points. Then, cite the significant causes and recommendations in this study. You can also provide insights on whether this should cause alarm and how societies should address the problem.

There is a broad sentiment that social media has been driving people to live in a bubble and be less empathetic — more narcissistic. However, some point out that intensifying competition and increasing economic pressures are more to blame for reducing our empathetic feelings. Research and write about what experts have to say and provide a personal touch by adding your experience.

Acts of kindness abound every day. But sometimes, we fail to capture or take them for granted. Write about your unforgettable encounters with empathetic people. Then, create a storytelling essay to convey your personal view on empathy. This activity can help you appreciate better the little good things in life.

Check out our general resource of essay writing topics and stimulate your creative mind!

See our round-up of the best essay checkers to ensure your writing is error-free.

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Mike Robbins

Infusing Life and Business with Authenticity and Appreciation

Why Empathy is Important: How to Become More Empathetic

February 5, 2021 24 Comments

As an executive coach and consultant, my clients often ask me why empathy is so important.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines empathy as:

The action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner.

Do you know why empathy is important, or what it is?

Here is Why Empathy is Important

Empathy is one of the most important aspects of creating strong relationships, reducing stress, and enhancing emotional awareness – yet it can be tricky at times.

For example, how can you be empathetic towards people you may not necessarily agree with?

I consider myself to be an empathetic person, but I notice that with certain people and in particular situations, my natural ability and desire to empathize can be diminished or almost non-existent, especially these days.

But there are so many benefits to empathy that most people aren’t even aware of. For example, I also notice that when I feel empathy for others and for myself, I feel a sense of peace, connection, and perspective that I like. And, when there is an absence of empathy in a particular relationship, situation, or in how I’m relating to myself, I often experience stress, disconnection, and negativity.

Can you relate?

Never underestimate the power of empathy.

But what is empathy anyway?

It’s important to understand that empathy is not sympathy.

When we’re sympathetic, we often pity someone else but maintain our distance (physically, mentally, and emotionally) from their feelings or experience.

Empathy is more a sense that we can truly understand, relate to, or imagine the depth of another person’s emotional state or situation.

It implies feeling with a person, rather than feeling sorry for a person.

Empathy is a translation of the German term Einfühlung , meaning “to feel as one with.” It implies sharing the load, or “walking a mile in someone else’s shoes,” in order to understand that person’s perspective.

The Benefits of Empathy

Another reason why empathy is so important is that it’s one of the best ways we can enhance our relationships, reduce our stress levels, and feel good about ourselves and our lives in an authentic way. Here are a few more benefits of empathy:

Benefits your health (less stress and less negativity which leads people to be in better shape with stronger immune systems)
Leads to a happier life
Improves communications skills
Leads to teamwork
Creates a healthy work environment
Transcends personal relationships
Decreases negativity

Why Do People Lack Empathy?

There are a number of things that get in the way of us utilizing and experiencing the power of empathy. Three of the main ones, which are all interrelated, are as follows:

1. Feeling Threatened

We often feel “threatened” based on our own fears, projections, and past experiences – not by what is actually happening in the moment or in a particular relationship or situation. Whether the threat is “real” or “imagined,” when we feel threatened in any way, it often shuts down our ability to experience empathy.

2. Being Judgmental

Being judgmental is a totally different game than making value judgments (what to wear, what to eat, what to say, etc.).

When we’re judgmental, we decide that we’re “right” and someone else is “wrong.” Doing this hurts us and others and it cuts us off from those around us. When we’re being judgmental about another person, group of people, or situation, we significantly diminish our capacity to be empathetic.

Can you guess the root of all of this?

It’s our fear.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with fear, it’s a natural human emotion – which, in fact, has many positive aspects to it, if we’re willing to admit it, own it, express it, and move through it. Fear saves our lives and keeps us out of trouble all the time.

The issue with fear is our denial of it. We deem things, people, or situations to be “scary,” when in truth there is nothing in life that is inherently “scary.” When we allow ourselves to be motivated by fear – which often leads to us defending ourselves against “threats,” being judgmental, and more – it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to access the power of empathy.

On my podcast , I often talk about the importance of embracing our emotions. The more willing we are to look at our fear, acknowledge it, embrace it, own it, and take responsibility for it, the more able we are to expand our capacity for empathy.

Signs That Someone Lacks Empathy

Here are some signs that someone lacks empathy.

Highly critical of others
Unable to control emotions
Unaware of other people’s feelings
Accuses people of being overly sensitive
Overreacts to small things
Won’t admit when wrong
Behaves insensitively
Has trouble maintaining relationships
Can’t handle uncomfortable situations
Sees perceived slights everywhere

The reason why empathy is so important is that it helps us better understand how others are feeling, and even feel it in ourselves. It helps us maintain relationships and plays a role in dictating our success in both personal and professional relationships.

A lack of empathy can also be a trait of personality disorders like narcissism or antisocial personality disorder.

People may lack empathy due to the environment they were raised in. They may have grown up with parents who could not regulate their emotions and showed very little compassion towards them. They may have also experienced difficult situations in life that caused them to lack empathy and behave the way they do.

How to Become More Empathetic

Here are a few things you can do and think about to become more empathetic:

1. Be Real About How You Feel

When we’re in a conflict with another person or dealing with someone or something that’s challenging for us, being able to admit, own, and express our fear, insecurity, sadness, anger, jealousy, or whatever other “negative” emotions we are experiencing, is one of the best ways for us to move past our defensiveness and authentically address the deeper issues of the situation.

Doing this allows us to access empathy for ourselves, the other person or people involved, and even the circumstances of the conflict or challenge itself. Check out this blog post for tips on how to resolve conflict.

2. Imagine What It’s Like For Them

While it can sometimes be difficult for us to “understand” another person’s perspective or situation, being able to imagine what it must be like for them is an essential aspect of empathy.

The more willing we are to imagine what it’s like for them, the more compassion, understanding, and empathy we’ll be able to experience.

In today’s uncertain political climate and the many stresses that come with a pandemic, it is more important now than ever before to use compassion every day. You can learn more about the importance of compassion here.

My most recent book, We’re All in This Together , helps leaders become more compassionate with their team members by giving them a roadmap for building trust, collaborating, and operating at a peak level. Learn more about the book here .

3. Forgive Yourself and Others

In another one of my books, Nothing Changes Until You Do , I talk about the complicated relationship we all have with ourselves and the struggle many of us have to be kind, compassionate, and loving towards ourselves. Forgiveness is one of the most important things we can do in life to heal ourselves, let go of negativity, and live a life of peace and fulfillment. Forgiveness has to first start with us.

I believe that all judgment is self-judgment. When we forgive ourselves, we create the conditions and perspective to forgive others.

Forgiveness is one of the many important aspects of life that is often easier said than done. It is something we need to learn about and practice all the time.

One of the best books you can read on this subject is called Forgive For Good , written by my friend and mentor Dr. Fred Luskin, one of the world’s leading experts and teachers about the power of forgiveness. This book gives you practical and tangible techniques you can use to forgive anyone and anything.

The more willing we are to forgive ourselves and others (and continue to practice this in an ongoing way), the more able we’ll be to empathize authentically.

Questions to Ask Yourself:

How empathetic are you?
What can you do to enhance your capacity for empathy?
How would an increased ability to empathize with others (and yourself) impact your life and relationships?
Where in your life and relationships can you see that feeling threatened, being judgmental, and experiencing fear stop you from being empathetic?

Share your thoughts, ideas, insights, and more in the comments section below.

I have written five books about, among other things, the importance of empathy, authenticity, and appreciation. I deliver keynotes and seminars (both in-person and virtually) that empower people, leaders, and teams to grow, connect, and perform their best. As an expert in teamwork, leadership, and emotional intelligence, I teach techniques that allow people and organizations to be more engaged and effective. Find out more about how I can help you and your team achieve your goals today.

This article was originally published on October 13, 2010, and has been updated for 2021.

We’re All Doing the Best We Can
Why Do We Judge Others?
The Trap of Comparison with Others
The Power of Empathy

Reader Interactions

October 14, 2010 at 8:26 pm

Several so called friends last year told me one day that I got on their nerves because I was laughing and acting silly and had no idea I was “getting on their nerves”. At the time I didn’t get it because I didn’t think my laughing was inappropriate under the cirucmstances. Now I see that they probably weren’t allowed to be a child and play when they were growing up which I can fully relate with. Someone probably told them they got on their nerves when they were having fun. The idea that all judgement is self judgement makes sense to me. If I got on their nerves, they must get on their own nerves too.

February 5, 2021 at 11:24 am

Sorry to hear about this…although it sounds like you have a great perspective about it.

October 15, 2010 at 8:26 am

In my humble opinion, empathy is useful in bonding with someone.

Compassion is a higher state of awareness, however.

With empathy, we can take on and fully experience the anger of someone who has been wronged or violated. Empathy may also keep us in a loop of victimhood, separation, righteous indignation or just simply keep our hearts closed to transformation.

With compassion, we go beyond feeling empathetically what someone else feels, seeing through the present situation with unconditional love, kindness and understanding.

We can understand someone’s feelings and response while still keeping our hearts open to the Highest Good for all without getting caught up in the story.

So, inherent in compassion is also forgiveness.

Beautiful topic, Mike. Thank you.

February 5, 2021 at 11:20 am

You are welcome. Yes, Empathy and Compassion are both so important, especially these days.

October 21, 2010 at 11:42 am

Great post, I was speaking to a friend of mine last night about empathy and sent him this post, I believe it will help give him clarity that he needs, very well written! I’ve found my own empathy to be crucial in being able to perform as a musician… now I’m learning to use my empathy to help “raise the vibe” of people I communicate with… instead of being judgmental I am seeking to observe, to understand… I believe the only way to inspire lasting change is to lead by example, to encourage instead of blame, to work with people instead of against them… of course this can be more challenging in some circumstances than in others, but I find by focusing on this my integrity and sense of my true self remain intact. Continue to spread your joyful wisdom!

Peace and Blessings!

February 5, 2021 at 11:21 am

I appreciate you reading this post, your comment, and you sharing it with someone in your life.

December 27, 2019 at 6:53 pm

Hi Mike your explanation on the word empay is well understood. True talk.

January 28, 2021 at 8:14 am

Hello Mike, thanks for this wonderful write-up on empathy. it’s very simple to understanding. God bless you for posting. I will be grateful if you can throw more light on “How to Express Empathy and How to Develop Empathy”. Thanks.

Thanks John! Listening and asking questions are ways to express empathy. Meditation and journaling are ways to develop more empathy. It takes real commitment and intention.

February 6, 2021 at 7:41 am

Thanks Mike. Regarding traits of those who lack empathy, I see these in my 17 year-old son which surprise me at times, given his upbringing. Can you share insight from a developmental perspective? Thank you!

April 5, 2021 at 8:10 am

You are welcome. Thanks for reading this piece and for your comment. I hear you about your son…it can be challenging when we see a lack of empathy at times in the people we love, especially our children. Teenagers go through stages and can often be quite critical and self-absorbed, which they often grow out of. The pandemic has been especially brutal for our teens. Have empathy for him and give him time.

April 4, 2021 at 9:04 pm

While I agree it is important to have cognitive empathy, as to understand intellectually what another is going through, I do not understand the need for emotive empathy.

Unless it is a person who I have a connection with, I believe having emotive empathy with every person and standing in solidarity with everyone is a complete antithesis of reason and the rationality which is often required to make the serious decisions required by society.

Finally I take issue with emotive empathy towards others I do not know, as empathy is a two way street, and I feel there is absolutely no reason to allow others I do not know to make an empathetic connection with me.

April 5, 2021 at 8:13 am

Thanks! Empathy is an emotional response to the vulnerability, pain, and/or experience of another human being (or group of human beings). It is not necessary to have a personal relationship with someone to feel empathy for them. Have you ever cried watching a movie based on the suffering of another person? The natural human response to vulnerability is empathy…and, given the state of our country and our world right now, clearly we could use more empathy.

April 28, 2021 at 5:38 pm

I just realized that I lack empathy… Somehow this post helped me to understand why I’m like this & need to change. After a few incidents I just shut myself out & became weird. Took me long enough to finally understand it after losing those important to me.

August 23, 2021 at 9:08 am

MY PAYPAL ACCOUNT WSA JUST CREDITED WITH $20,000 BY FABULOUSHACKERS.COM

January 26, 2022 at 2:06 am

Great article although im confusedyou said in the first paragraph how important empathy is but in the next paragraph you say that with certain people and situations you have no empathy, please can u explain why as i feel this all the time Regards Nathan

March 21, 2022 at 12:30 am

I’m also confused with the thing Nathan pointed out…

June 12, 2022 at 8:38 pm

Very good article, very useful. Thank you

January 9, 2023 at 11:30 pm

Empathy is the ability to understand the emotions and feelings of the other people. It is also related to kindness and gratitude. There are various benefits of empathy. I would recommend you to read this article to know more about it. https://theoneliner.in/4-benefits-of-empathy-you-never-knew-before/

April 9, 2023 at 4:43 am

Good article thank you. I am curious to know why you use the word empathetic rather than empathic. Empathic is the word used years ago to indicate someone with empathy whereas empathetic is newer and for me indicates manufacturing empathy rather than it being a natural ability you have. Is that why you are using it?

April 13, 2023 at 7:32 am

Hi Thanks for this! My take is that while empathy is a useful emotion, if not managed carefully, it poses quite a few dangers. This article may help bring some much needed balance to the topic of empathy: https://unpopularpsychology.substack.com/p/the-8-dangers-of-empathy

January 10, 2024 at 2:33 am

This blog beautifully explains empathy’s impact on our daily lives. Empathy is needed everywhere: in relationships, depression, and all other situations. They tell us to practice being empathetic in our lives. It also lists the different strategies and methods to become empathetic. It creates an emotional awareness among us. Enhance yourself about knowing empathy in detail at https://yourmentalhealthpal.com/how-to-listen-without-giving-advice/ .

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Empathy and Its Development Essay

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Introduction

The meaning of empathy, connection between empathy and life in richmond, virginia, importance of empathy, works cited.

The rising economic hardships have forced many people to spend more time on hobbies and careers with little attention to other people’s lives. This means that they have no time left to listen to the woes of other people, to comfort those who are in pain, and to help them come of the problems surrounding them. Clearly, there is no doubt that we as human beings, ought to exercise empathy to the feelings, concerns, problems and predicaments facing other people. This article examines the meaning of empathy, the connection between empathy and life, and the importance of expressing empathy. It shows what it means to have empathy as a human being. The article will also examine the effects of expressing empathy and those of not expressing empathy.

We can define empathy as the ability to identify with a situation that another person is going through. In other words, empathy is the ability to put oneself in somebody’s situation as a way of expressing concern on what the other person is experiencing. When a person identifies with another person’s situation and tries to alleviate or mitigate the stressing factor in the situation, then one can say that he or she is expressing empathy. Acts of empathy may therefore include such actions as giving food to the needy in the society or providing shelter to those who are homeless. Generally, empathy has much to do with acts of kindness directed to people faced with situations, which are hostile. Thus, empathy is a form of kindness directed to people who need it based on how the donor or the person giving has perceived the situation at hand. For example, if a person living in Richmond loses a family member through death, the neighbors and relatives to come and comfort the family for the loss. In this way, they are expressing their empathies to those who affected (Eisenberg 3-7).

Most importantly, for a person to express empathy there must be bad scenarios that brings fear, discomfort, pain, and suffering. These scenarios must have created a clear psychological difference between the person being empathetic and the one who is the subject of empathy. Generally, two persons in the same unfortunate situation may not manifest empathy feelings towards each other. This is because of undergoing the same situation and neither of them may be in a position to help the other. However, if two people are experiencing different unfortunate circumstances at the same time, they may be able console each other thus, they may show empathy to each other. For instance, a bereaved person living in Richmond, Virginia may show empathy to another person who has lost his or her house to fire.

The word “empathy” is synonymous to “awareness” meaning that people who show empathy to others are sympathetic and would love to help those in trouble. For example, a youth living in Richmond, Virginia can express empathy to his or her friend experiencing loneliness by visiting the friend, and even watching a movie together. In some instances, some students offer to help others who are weak in math and sciences. Some people also show empathy by listening to the woes affecting other people while sharing a cup of coffee. In fact, empathy dwells more on emotional development than just being aware of the problems facing other people. For instance, in college, I have found some of my friends depressed just because they did not score good grades in the test. All they needed was sympathy and someone to encourage them that there is always another time to perform better. Somebody to make them understand that they need to change their reading habits or change some tactics in order to score good grades (Gallese 175-176).

As we have seen above, empathy is the ability to express feelings towards troubles, problems, and challenging times facing another person by showing sympathy and understanding. Sometimes, life can fix. When I first came to Richmond, I experienced homesick for a long period. A simple thing can cause me cry and I felt so much depressed. I had no friends at that time. Luckily, I met a colleague friend of mine who had noticed my depression. After lecture, he will invite me to accompany him to a restaurant where he could tell me the history of Richmond, studies, and his hobbies as we took coffee. With time, the homesick I used to experience disappeared. Indeed this is a classic example of empathy involving two people. Definitely, I was in a hostile situation and that friend came to assist me come out of that situation. It is worth noting that acts of empathy or helping others who are a hostile situation or in a position that need assistance should be on a voluntary basis. In other words, if someone wants to help a disadvantaged person, it should be voluntary and he or she should not expect something in return. Therefore, empathy has everything to do with the willingness to help out of one’s own volition or free will (Vincent 16-19).

Empathy is an important virtue possessed by human beings. People can express empathy in different ways. There is no doubt that people of all classes live in the city. There are those who are rich, while others are less privileged. Those who privileged should help those living in deplorable conditions. For instance, we have very many organizations in Richmond that assist the less privileged. We have also seen people visit children homes where they donate clothing and food to the children. Most of the children in these homes are orphans, and therefore, they do not have someone to cater for their needs. By spending time with them, playing and talking with them, they feel part of the community. This is important as it enables them to develop self-confidence and enhance their self-esteem. Apart from spending time with them, people also have time to educate them on necessary issues. By talking to them, the children also feel cared for and they can go on with their lives as if they have their biological parents (Slote 57-73).

Just like in any other society, people in Richmond also fall sick. Once admitted in hospital, they experience psychological stress, as they stand separated from their family members. It is the prerogative of the members of the family and friends to visit patients in hospitals, say encouragement words to them, and wish them quick recovery. This will definitely make them feel happy (Hojat 15-24).

Nobody should underestimate the importance of empathy to the community. In Richmond, many primary schools emphasize the importance of empathy to pupils, and they encourage them to help always their classmates, family members, and other people who may be in problems. Additionally, people should learn that indifference and insensitivity do not help at all, and they should express sympathy to those facing difficulties in life.

Eisenberg, Nancy. Empathy and Its Development . New York: CUP Archive, 1990. Print.

Gallese, Vittorio. “The Roots of Empathy: The Shared Manifold Hypothesis and the Neural Basis of Intersubjectivity”. Psychopathology 36.4(2003): 171–180. Print.

Hojat, Mohammad. Empathy in Patient Care: Antecedents, Development, Measurement, and Outcomes . New York: Springer, 2007. Print.

Slote, Michael. The Ethics of Care and Empathy . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Print.

Vincent, Steve. Being Empathic: A Companion for Counselors and Therapists . New York: Radcliffe Publishing, 2005. Print.

Evolutionary Psychology: Cognition and Culture
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Theories of Counseling
"The Reverend and Me" by Robert Wineburg
Social Influences on Human Behavior
Financial and Budgeting Implications for Metropolitan Authority in Nova Scotia
Influence: the Psychology of Persuasion
Cognitive Therapy for Anxiety and Addiction Withdrawal
Jean Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
On the Reception and Detection of Pseudo-profound Bullshit
Cognitive Dissonance and Its Reduction
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Essay on Empathy

Students are often asked to write an essay on Empathy in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Empathy

Understanding empathy.

Empathy is feeling what others feel. It’s like stepping into someone’s shoes and understanding their emotions. Empathy helps us connect with others.

Why is Empathy Important?

Empathy is important because it builds strong relationships. It helps us understand others better, making us kinder and compassionate.

Empathy in Everyday Life

We use empathy every day. When a friend is sad, we feel their sorrow. This understanding helps us be supportive.

Developing Empathy

We can develop empathy by listening and observing others. Remember, it’s about understanding, not agreeing. Practice empathy to grow as a person.

250 Words Essay on Empathy

Empathy, a fundamental aspect of human connection, is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. It’s a cognitive attribute, allowing us to perceive the world from another’s perspective. It’s not merely about feeling the same emotions, but comprehending the emotional state of another, without losing the distinction between self and other.

The Types of Empathy

Empathy manifests in three primary forms: cognitive, emotional, and compassionate. Cognitive empathy refers to understanding someone’s thoughts and emotions, acting as a bridge for communication. Emotional empathy, on the other hand, involves sharing the feelings of others, often leading to a deep emotional connection. Compassionate empathy, the most actionable, combines understanding and feeling to drive us to help, if possible.

Empathy and Society

Empathy plays a pivotal role in society. It fosters tolerance, understanding, and mutual respect, acting as the glue that holds diverse communities together. Without empathy, societies would struggle to function harmoniously, leading to a rise in conflict and misunderstanding.

The Neurobiology of Empathy

Recent research in neuroscience has discovered the existence of ‘mirror neurons,’ cells in the brain that activate both when we perform an action and when we observe someone else performing the same action. This discovery has provided a biological basis for empathy, highlighting its inherent role in our lives.

In conclusion, empathy is a powerful tool that allows us to connect with others on a profound level. It’s an essential trait for maintaining harmony within societies and understanding the world around us.

500 Words Essay on Empathy

Introduction to empathy.

Empathy, a complex psychological phenomenon, is a fundamental aspect of human interaction. It is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others, a bridge between self and others. Empathy allows us to perceive the world not only from our perspective but also from the viewpoint of other individuals.

The Two Dimensions of Empathy

Empathy is broadly divided into two dimensions: affective and cognitive. Affective empathy refers to the sensations and feelings we get in response to others’ emotions. It’s the ability to respond emotionally to another’s psychological state. Cognitive empathy, on the other hand, involves understanding others’ emotions from a more intellectual perspective. It’s the ability to identify and understand other people’s emotions.

The Role of Empathy in Society

Empathy plays a crucial role in society. By fostering understanding and compassion, it helps build strong and healthy relationships. It’s the foundation of effective communication, conflict resolution, and cooperation. Empathy is also a key aspect of leadership as it helps leaders understand and address the needs and concerns of their team members.

Empathy and Moral Development

Empathy is closely linked to moral development. It is the emotional response that propels us towards altruistic behavior. Empathy encourages us to act in ways that benefit others, even at a cost to ourselves. It is the driving force behind acts of kindness and compassion, shaping our moral decisions and ethical conduct.

Empathy in the Digital Age

Empathy: a skill to be cultivated.

Empathy is not just an innate ability; it’s a skill that can be cultivated. Through active listening, perspective-taking, and emotional intelligence training, we can enhance our empathic abilities. By fostering empathy, we can promote a more understanding, compassionate, and harmonious society.

In conclusion, empathy is a vital human capacity that enables us to understand and share the feelings of others. It plays a crucial role in our interpersonal relationships, moral development, and societal harmony. In the digital age, cultivating empathy is more important than ever. By enhancing our empathic abilities, we can foster a more understanding and compassionate society.

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

Learn How to Write a Perfect Empathy Essay

Are you having a hard time, finding good tips and tricks on writing an empathy essay? Of course, writing it gets easy when you have the proper guidelines. Such as the professional research paper writers have for you in this interesting blog post.

Writing an empathy essay is like delving into understanding emotions, seeing things from other’s perspectives, and showing care and understanding. It talks about how empathy shapes relationships, impacts society, and why it’s vital for a kinder world.

No need to fret, as this blog post is like a friendly guide for beginners that will help them understand everything about writing an empathy essay. So, without further ado, let’s get started.

Table of Contents

What is an Empathy Essay?

An empathy essay or emotions essay revolves around the exploration and analysis of empathy as a concept, trait, or practice. It’s about exploring and analyzing what empathy is all about, whether it’s a concept, a trait, or something you have to practice. You know, getting into the nitty-gritty of understanding emotions, different perspectives, and how we can relate to other people’s experiences.

The point of this essay is to show how empathy is super important in relationships, connections between people, and even in society as a whole. It’s all about showing how empathy plays a big role and why it’s so important.

Key elements in empathy writing include a clear definition and explanation of empathy, supported by relatable anecdotes or case studies to illustrate its application. It should delve into empathy’s psychological and societal implications, discussing its effects on individual well-being, relationships, and society at large. Moreover, the empathy essays require a balanced exploration of challenges and complexities related to empathy, such as cultural differences, biases, and the boundaries of empathy in various situations.

Students might find it useful to consider a professional paper writing service for an empathy essay due to various reasons. These services often provide access to experienced writers who specialize in crafting well-researched and structured essays. Professional writers can offer a fresh perspective, present nuanced arguments, and ensure the essay meets academic standards.

Why Empathy Essay Writing is Challenging for Some Students?

Writing an essay with empathy can pose challenges for students due to several reasons.

Complex Nature of Empathy

Understanding empathy involves navigating emotional intelligence, perspective-taking, and compassionate understanding, which can be challenging to articulate coherently.

Subjectivity and Personal Experience

Expressing subjective feelings and personal experiences while maintaining objectivity in empathic writing can be difficult for students.

Navigating Sensitivity

Addressing sensitive topics and human complexities while maintaining a respectful and empathetic tone in writing can be demanding.

Handling Diverse Perspectives

Grasping and objectively presenting diverse perspectives across different cultural and social contexts can pose a challenge.

Time Constraints and Academic Pressures

Juggling multiple assignments and deadlines might limit the time and focus students can dedicate to thoroughly researching and crafting an empathy essay.

Common Mistakes a Student Makes When Writing an Empathy Essay

Expert Tips on Writing a Perfect Empathy Essay

Here are some tips with corresponding examples for writing an empathy essay:

Start with a Compelling Story

Begin your essay with a narrative that illustrates empathy in action. For instance, recount a personal experience where you or someone else demonstrated empathy. For instance:

Example: As a child, I vividly recall a moment when my grandmother’s empathetic nature became evident. Despite her own struggles, she always took time to comfort others, such as when she helped a neighbor through a difficult loss.

Define Empathy Clearly

Define empathy and its various dimensions using simple language.

Example: Empathy goes beyond sympathy; it’s about understanding and feeling what someone else is experiencing. It involves recognizing emotions and responding with care and understanding.

Use Real-life Examples

For achieving empathy in writing, incorporate real-life instances or case studies to emphasize empathy’s impact.

Example: Research shows how empathy in healthcare professionals led to improved patient outcomes. Doctors who showed empathy were found to have patients with higher satisfaction rates and better recovery.

Explore Perspectives

Discuss different perspectives on empathy and its challenges.

Example: While empathy is crucial, cultural differences can sometimes pose challenges. For instance, what’s considered empathetic in one culture might differ in another, highlighting the need for cultural sensitivity.

Highlight Benefits

Explain the positive outcomes of empathy in various contexts.

Example: In workplaces, empathy fosters a more cohesive team environment. A study by the researcher found that leaders who display empathy tend to have more engaged and motivated teams.

Acknowledge Challenges

Address the complexities or limitations of empathy.

Example: Despite its benefits, there are challenges in maintaining boundaries in empathetic relationships. It’s important to balance being empathetic and avoiding emotional burnout.

Conclude with Impact

Wrap up by emphasizing the broader impact of empathy.

Example: Ultimately, fostering empathy creates a ripple effect, contributing to a more compassionate and understanding society, where individuals feel seen, heard, and supported.

Steps of Writing an Empathy Essay

Here are the steps for writing an empathy essay. You’ll notice that most of the steps are the same as writing a research paper or any such academic task.

Understanding the Topic

Familiarize yourself with the concept of empathy and its various dimensions. Define what empathy means to you and what aspects you aim to explore in your essay.

Gather information from credible sources, including academic articles, books, and real-life examples that illustrate empathy’s role and impact. Take notes on key points and examples that you can incorporate into your essays on empathy

Create an outline that includes an introduction (with a thesis statement defining the scope of your essay), body paragraphs discussing different aspects of empathy (such as its definition, importance, challenges, and benefits), and a conclusion summarizing the main points.

Introduction

Start your essay with a compelling hook or anecdote related to empathy. Introduce the topic and provide a clear thesis statement outlining what you’ll discuss in the essay.

Body Paragraphs

Each paragraph should focus on a specific aspect of empathy supported by evidence or examples. Discuss empathy’s definition, its significance in different contexts (personal, societal, professional), challenges in practicing empathy, benefits, and potential limitations.

Use Examples

Incorporate real-life examples or case studies to illustrate your points and make them relatable to the reader.

Address Counterarguments

Acknowledge differing perspectives or potential counterarguments related to empathy and address them thoughtfully within your essay.

Summarize the main points discussed in the essay. Restate the significance of empathy and its impact, leaving the reader with a lasting impression or call to action.

Edit and Revise

Review your essay for coherence, clarity, and consistency. Check for grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors. Ensure that your ideas flow logically and that your essay effectively communicates your thoughts on empathy.

Make any necessary revisions based on feedback or additional insights. Ensure that your essay meets the guidelines and requirements if it’s for a specific assignment. Then, finalize and submit your empathy essay.

Final Thoughts

In this blog post, we’ve tried to make writing an empathy essay easier for students. We’ve explained it step by step, using easy examples and clear explanations. The goal is to help students understand what empathy is and how to write about it in an essay.

The steps we’ve shared for writing an empathy essay are straightforward. They start with understanding the topic and doing research, then move on to outlining, writing, and polishing the essay. We’ve highlighted the importance of using personal stories, real-life examples, and organizing ideas well.

Students can benefit from our assignment writing service for their empathy essays. Our experienced writers can provide expert help, ensuring the essays meet academic standards and are well-written. This support saves time and helps students focus on other schoolwork while getting a top-notch empathy essay.

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Empathy Essay | Essay on Empathy for Students and Children in English

February 13, 2024 by Prasanna

Empathy Essay: Empathy is the ability to understand an individual emotionally. It is the ability to understand what the other person feels. It is seeing things from their point of view. It is putting yourself in someone else’s position. It is the capability of imagining how someone else might be feeling.

You can also find more Essay Writing articles on events, persons, sports, technology and many more.

Long and Short Essays on Empathy for Students and Kids in English

We are providing the students with essay samples on a long essay of 500 words in English and a short essay of 150 words on Empathy in English.

Long Essay on Empathy 500 Words in English

Long Essay on Empathy is usually given to classes 7, 8, 9, and 10.

Empathy is a highly valued trait and is essential for social interactions. Empathy is the ability to understand a person’s emotions and feelings. It is an essential component for both professional as well as personal lives. It is the ability or trait to understand other people’s values, beliefs and cultures.

Empathy is the power of connection. It is a sensation of experiencing what the other person is going through. It is seen as a cognitive ability—a trait to imagine future scenarios or solve problems based on past experiences. Empathy makes an individual capable of creating a psychic and emotional connection with another person. It enables a person to enter into another individual’s mindscape. If a person feels connected to another person’s mindset, it is impossible to mistreat them, except unintentionally. A person gets to recoil from their experience of suffering in the same way of recoiling for their individual suffering. It brings a sense of desire to aid the person suffering.

There are several states of empathy which include, cognitive empathy, affective empathy and somatic empathy. Cognitive empathy is the capability to understand another person’s mental state. Affective empathy is also known as emotional empathy. It is the ability of a person to respond with an appropriate emotion to another person’s mental state. Somatic empathy is based on the physical reaction of an individual. It is based on mirror neuron responses.

Empathy manifests in education as well in between teachers and students. Empathy becomes difficult when there are differences between people regarding culture, language, skin colour, gender and age. Empathy is considered as a motivating factor for unselfish behaviour. Lack of empathy is similar to antisocial behaviour. Empathy develops deep roots in our brains, as our evolutionary history. Having empathy does not mean that a person is willing to help someone. It is an essential step toward compassionate action.

Empathy forms one of the most critical components of creating harmonious relationships. It reduces stress and enhances emotional awareness. People are well attuned to their feelings and emotions. Getting into someone’s head can be challenging at times. People tend to be empathetic when they listen to what others have to say. It makes an individual overwhelmed by tragic incidents. Empathy can make an individual concerned about the well-being of another individual.

Empathy helps to make an individual a better person. By understanding what people are thinking and feeling, people can respond appropriately. Social connections build up as a result of empathy. It helps in both physical and psychological well-being. Empathizing with others helps to regulate a person’s own emotions. It helps an individual to manage his feelings even at times of great stress.

Empathy helps a person to engage themselves in helpful behaviours. Not everyone experiences empathy. Some people may be more naturally empathetic than others. How a person perceives another person can influence empathy to a great extent. Being empathetic towards others will help to understand other’s suffering and create harmony in the world.

Short Essay on Empathy 150 Words in English

Short Essay on Empathy is usually given to classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Empathy is a trait where an individual experiences an emotional response to another person’s sufferings. It is very different from sympathy. It is walking in someone else’s shoes and sharing their feelings. Feeling heard by someone and understood is one of the human needs everyone deserves to be understood. Empathy helps an individual to get in touch with his or her feelings and gives him or her emotional understanding of themselves and other people.

Empathy can be learned and practised. It is a vital aspect of our everyday lives. It enables an individual to show compassion. It helps to relate to other people, relatives, colleagues, loved ones and helps to impact the world in a positive way. Some people are born with empathy while some learn it and can increase or decrease it. It is a part of the emotional intelligence, which can be taught to the children at a very early stage. Children can be taught to be empathetic by sharing their things and not hurting others.

10 Lines on Empathy in English

In the absence of empathy, relationships remain shallow.
Empathy does not form a part of intuition; it is about understanding others.
Empathy is basically a learned behaviour.
The capacity of being empathetic to another person depends on each individual.
Empathetic people tend to help others more.
Painkillers can reduce your capacity of being empathetic towards other people.
Anxiety and tension can influence empathy to a great extent.
An individual can heighten their empathy through meditation.
All humans are inclined towards empathizing others in their pain and sufferings.
A genetic defect can reduce an individual’s empathy.

FAQ’s on Empathy Essay

Question 1. What is too much empathy, called?

Answer: Too much empathy is known as Hyper-empathy. Having too much empathy can lead a person to burn out.

Question 2. What can cause a person to have a lack of empathy?

Answer: Lack of empathy can be caused due to narcissism, antisocial- personality and its disorders, a genetic defect or even psychopathy.

Question 3. How can you overcome Hyper-empathy?

Answer: Hyper-empathy can be overcome by shifting the feeling of empathy to a skill. Making the mind clear that empathy is not behaviour; it forms a part of a skill. Setting clear boundaries and taking everything in a light manner can reduce a person from being too much empathetic about someone.

Question 4. Does lack of empathy lead to autism?

Answer: No, it does not lead to autism.

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Home / Essay Samples / Life / Emotion / Empathy

Empathy Essay Examples

Building empathy with communicating with others.

Why is empathy such an important role in communication? Why is it so hard to show empathy for someone facing a situation you never experienced? Does complex thinking effect empathy in way or are they different when communicating? What is the difference between sympathy and...

The Essence of Good Character

Good character is a fundamental aspect of human nature that shapes our interactions, decisions, and overall demeanor. It goes beyond external appearances and delves into the qualities that define our moral and ethical integrity. While the concept of good character may vary across cultures and...

The Power of Small Acts: Exploring the Importance of Kindness

There are different emotions and feeling that people like to see in other people. It is huge list but today we are focusing one of the main one which is kindness. We can pretty much say Kindness is one of the most important human qualities....

Empathy in a Moral System

Frequently morality and empathy are used interchangeably in both formal and informal conversation. This suggests that the two are so closely related that it is a common mistake to confuse the two. Additionally, it is accepted that empathy plays a foundational role in morality. The...

Understanding the Concept of Empathy

Hoffman (1984) defined empathy as the “cognitive awareness of another person’s internal states (thoughts, feelings, perceptions, intentions) and the vicarious affective response to another person” (p. 103). This definition explains empathy as a multidimensional construct referring to it as a cognitive phenomenon, while also recognising...

Good Country People with Emphathy

An individual who is to be considered as a good country person is one who is empathic – one who thinks of other people’s feelings and is able to put themselves in the shoes of their counterparts in certain situations. Also, to be a good...

The Role of Empathy in Medical Profession

“Empathy is about standing in someone else’s shoes, feeling with his or her heart, seeing with his or her eyes. Not only empathy is hard to outsource and automate, but it makes the world a better place”, an exceptional quote by Daniel H. Pink. With...

Empathy Expressed Through Jamaica Kincaid’s Poem

Throughout the story “A Clean Well-Lighted Place,” Ernest Hemingway shows how the concept of “loneliness” is displayed throughout the entire story. This suggests that the people who seem rich and happy will eventually have some of the darkest times in their life. The story “Girl”...

Empathy and Emotional Intelligence

What is empathy? “Empathy means to recognize others’ feelings, the causes of these feelings, and to be able to participate in the emotional experience of an individual without becoming part of it” (Ioannidou & Konstantikaki, 2008). Many people confuse sympathy with empathy, but they are...

The Relationship Between Prosocial Behavior and Animal Attitudes in a South African and Non-south African Population

The relationship established between prosocial behaviour and animal attitudes is one considered quite complex and contradictory. The goal of the study was to determine the relationship between prosocial behaviour and animal attitudes in a South African and non-South African population. A sample of 71 students...

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About Empathy

Empathy is the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner

Renowned psychologists Daniel Goleman and Paul Ekman have identified three components of empathy: Cognitive, Emotional and Compassionate.

Affective and cognitive empathy influence, and are influenced by, biological systems and processes that contribute to everyday feelings, thoughts, beliefs, decisions, and behavior. Empathetic feelings might enable individuals to develop more satisfactory interpersonal relations, especially in the long-term. Empathy-induced altruism can improve attitudes toward stigmatized groups, and to improve racial attitudes, and actions toward people with AIDS, the homeless, and convicts.

Painkillers reduce one’s capacity for empathy. Observation of another human being experiencing emotions lights up the same neurons in our brain as if we're experiencing the same feeling. Empathy exists because we know we’ve got only one life to live. Painkillers Reduce Your Capacity For Empathy Meditation May Heighten Empathy.

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