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Empathy vs. Sympathy - What Is The Difference?

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5 views

Empathy vs. Sympathy - What Is The Difference?

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anthonyecordeiro
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Empathy versus Sympathy: What Is the

Difference?
And Why You Should Care

Is that “empathy” or “sympathy” you're showing? While


the two words are often incorrectly used interchangeably,
the difference in their emotional impact is important.
Empathy, as the ability to actually feel what another
person is feeling — literally “walk a mile in their shoes” —
goes beyond sympathy, a simple expression of concern
for another person’s misfortune. Taken to extremes, deep
or extended feelings of empathy can actually be harmful
to one’s emotional health.

Sympathy
Sympathy is a feeling and expression of concern for
someone, often accompanied by a wish for them to be
happier or better off. “Oh dear, I hope the chemo helps.”
In general, sympathy implies a deeper, more personal,
level of concern than pity, a simple expression of sorrow.
However, unlike empathy, sympathy does not imply that
one’s feelings for another are based on shared
experiences or emotions.
As natural as it might seem, feeling sympathy does not
occur automatically. Instead, prerequisites for feeling
sympathy include:
 attention to the subject person or group;
 believing that subject is in a state of need; and
 knowledge of the specific characteristics of the
subjects’ given situation

To feel sympathy for a person or group, one must first pay


attention to them. Outside distractions severely limit the
ability to produce strong affective responses of sympathy.
When not distracted, people can better attend to and
respond to a variety of emotional subjects and
experiences. Attention enables one to experience
sympathy. In many cases, sympathy cannot be
experienced without giving the subject undivided
attention.
The individual’s or group’s perceived level of need elicits
sympathy. Different states of need—such as perceived
vulnerability or pain—require different sorts of human
reactions, including those that range from attention to
sympathy. For example, a person suffering from cancer
might draw stronger feelings of sympathy than a person
with a cold. A person who is perceived as being
“deserving” of help is more likely to get it.

Sympathy is also believed to be based on the principle of


the powerful helping the vulnerable. The young and
healthy help the elderly and sick, for example. To some
extent, the natural maternal-paternal instincts to care for
one’s children or family are thought to trigger feelings of
sympathy. Similarly, people who live in close geographic
proximity—such as neighbors and citizens of a given
country—are more likely to experience sympathy towards
each other. Social proximity follows the same pattern:
Members of certain groups, such as racial groups, tend to
be more sympathetic to people who are also members of
the group.

Empathy
As a translation into English of the German word
Einfühlung — “feeling into” — made by
psychologist Edward Titchener in 1909, “empathy” is the
ability to recognize and share another person’s emotions.
Empathy requires the ability to recognize the suffering of
another person from their point of view and to openly
share their emotions, including painful distress.
Empathy is often confused with sympathy, pity and
compassion, which are merely recognition of another
person’s distress. Pity typically implies that the suffering
person does not “deserve” what has happened to him or
her and is powerless to do anything about it. Pity shows a
lower degree of understanding and engagement with the
suffering person’s situation than empathy, sympathy, or
compassion.
Compassion is a deeper level of empathy, demonstrating
an actual desire to help the suffering person.
Since it requires shared experiences, people can
generally feel empathy only for other people, not for
animals. While people may be able to sympathize with a
horse, for example, they cannot truly empathize with it.
Psychologists say that empathy is essential in forming
relationships and acting compassionately toward others.
Since it involves experiencing another person’s point of
view—stepping outside one’s self—empathy enables
genuinely helping behaviors that come easily and
naturally, rather than having to be forced.
Empathetic people work effectively in groups, make more
lasting friendships, and are more likely to step in when
they see others being mistreated. It is believed that
people begin to show empathy in infancy and develop the
trait through childhood and adolescence. Despite their
level of concern for others, however, most people tend to
feel deeper empathy for people similar to themselves
compared to people outside their family, community,
race, ethnicity or cultural background.

The Three Types of Empathy


According to psychologist and pioneer in the field of
emotions, Paul Ekman, Ph.D., three distinct types of
empathy have been identified:
 Cognitive Empathy: Also called “perspective
taking,” cognitive empathy is the ability to
understand and predict the feelings and thoughts of
other by imagining one’s self in their situation.
 Emotional Empathy: Closely related to cognitive
empathy, emotional empathy is the ability to actually
feel what another person feels or at least feel
emotions similar to theirs. In emotional empathy,
there is always some level of shared feelings.
Emotional empathy can be a trait among persons
diagnosed with Asperger syndrome.
 Compassionate Empathy: Driven by their deep
understanding of the other person’s feelings based
on shared experiences, compassionately empathic
people make actual efforts to help.
While it can give meaning to our lives, Dr. Ekman warns
that empathy can also go terribly wrong.
The Dangers of Empathy
Empathy can give purpose to our lives and truly comfort
people in distress, but it can also do great harm. While
showing an empathetic response to the tragedy and
trauma of others can be helpful, it can also, if
misdirected, turn us into what Professor James Dawes has
called “emotional parasites.”
Empathy Can Lead to Misplaced Anger
Empathy can make people angry — perhaps dangerously
so — if they mistakenly perceive that another person is
threatening a person they care for.
For example, while at a public gathering, you notice a
heavyset, casually dressed man who you think is
“staring” at your pre-teenage daughter. While the man
has remained expressionless and has not moved from his
spot, your empathetic understanding of what he “might”
be thinking of doing to your daughter drives you into a
state of rage.
While there was nothing in the man’s expression or body
language that should have lead you to believe he
intended to harm your daughter, your empathetic
understanding what was probably “going on inside his
head” took you there.
Danish family therapist Jesper Juul has referred to
empathy and aggression as “existential twins.”

Empathy Can Drain Your Wallet


For years, psychologists have reported cases of overly
empathetic patients endangering the well-being of
themselves and their families by giving away their life
savings to random needy individuals. Such overly
empathetic people who feel they are somehow
responsible for the distress of others have developed an
empathy-based guilt.
The better-known condition of “survivor guilt” is a form of
empathy-based guilt in which an empathic person
incorrectly feels that his or her own happiness has come
at the cost or may have even caused another person’s
misery.
According to psychologist Lynn O’Connor, persons who
regularly act out of empathy-based guilt, or “pathological
altruism,” tend to develop mild depression in later-life.

Empathy Can Harm Relationships


Psychologists warn that empathy should never be
confused with love. While love can make any relationship
— good or bad — better, empathy cannot and can even
hasten the end of a strained relationship. Essentially, love
can cure, empathy cannot.
As an example of how even well-intentioned empathy can
damage a relationship, consider this scene from the
animated comedy television series The Simpsons: Bart,
bemoaning the failing grades on his report card, says,
“This is the worst semester of my life.” His dad, Homer,
based on his own school experience, tries to comfort his
son by telling him, “Your worst semester so far.”

Empathy Can Lead to Fatigue


Rehabilitation and trauma counselor Mark
Stebnicki coined the term “empathy fatigue” to refer to a
state of physical exhaustion resulting from repeated or
prolonged personal involvement in the chronic illness,
disability, trauma, grief, and loss of others.
While more common among mental health counselors,
any overly empathetic person can experience empathy
fatigue. According to Stebnicki, “high touch” professionals
like doctors, nurses, lawyers, and teachers tend to suffer
from empathy fatigue.
Paul Bloom, Ph.D., professor of psychology and cognitive
science at Yale University, goes so far as to suggest that
due to its inherent dangers, people need less empathy
rather than more.

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