Empathy is the ability to pick up on another person's emotions and mentally put yourself in their place, understanding what they feel. Psychologists distinguish several types, which have different brain mechanisms and different consequences for relationships.
Three types of empathy
Cognitive empathy — understanding another's point of view and state ("perspective-taking"). Emotional (affective) empathy — the ability to respond with matching feelings, up to "catching" an emotion. Compassionate empathy (empathic concern) — not only understanding and feeling, but also wanting to help.
It is important to distinguish empathic concern from personal distress — an anxious discomfort at the sight of another's suffering, which, on the contrary, can push one away from helping.
How empathy differs from sympathy
Sympathy is a feeling of concern and understanding toward someone who is suffering, often with a wish for them to feel better. Empathy is deeper: it is the ability to share the experience as if from within, to "feel together", rather than merely to sympathize from the outside.
How empathy is organized in the brain
Different types of empathy engage different regions: the affective type is linked to activity of the insula, the cognitive type to the middle part of the cingulate cortex and the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. Mirror neurons are involved in recognizing others' states.
Affective empathy is largely automatic, whereas cognitive empathy is more voluntary and deliberate.
Empathy and well-being
Higher levels of empathy are associated in studies with greater life satisfaction, a predominance of positive emotions and fewer depressive symptoms. Empathy underlies prosocial behavior and strong social ties, and the quality of relationships is consistently associated with healthy life expectancy.
Calculate using this marker
Calculators where Empathy is used directly:
Frequently asked questions
Can empathy be developed?
Yes, especially the cognitive type: practices of active listening, reading fiction and feedback train perspective-taking. Affective empathy is less malleable, but it is manageable through regulating your own emotions.
Can there be “too much” empathy?
An excess of affective empathy without self-regulation skills leads to personal distress and emotional burnout, especially in the helping professions. Here compassion combined with maintaining inner stability helps.