What, exactly, is empathy?

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I think I get the basic idea of what empathy is. It's that thing I feel when I can relate to someone's sadness. But at the same time if I don't understand why someone is sad and can relate to it, then I don't feel much of anything, even though their body language is telling me they're upset.

So I don't know if I'm an empathic person or not. I kind of get what it is, but I also kind of don't.

The word empathy is used for several different things, so don't try to come up with one conception that mashes all of them together. Here's a list.

Yes, I agree that the the word ''empathy'' has so many definitions, usually resulting in stereotyping or stigma against a certain group, like Aspies/Autistics. It has come to a point where I get irked when reading stuff about empathy here, because I observe so much NT behaviour every single day, and even NT people aren't empathetic experts. I know some NTs who are very empathetic, and I know others who really can not put themselves in other people's shoes.

I've even often noticed that NTs go to each other for help and advice on the right things to say to somebody who is having a lot of problems in their lives, because they are unsure or worried they might say the wrong thing and upset the person further.

Also I've heard NTs say that it's sometimes awkward when a person in crying. I've noticed that many times, whether it's been me crying or witnessing somebody else crying, I can tell that some people look or behave a little awkwardly, although they are trying to hide their awkwardness. And different people react differently to someone crying. Once I was in tears at work, and some people just stood and stared and not said anything, others did comfort me, others just walked away and pretended they didn't notice, but it doesn't mean the people who didn't comfort are horrible or lack empathy, it's just that they're human, not everybody always quite knows what to do all the time.


I know a lot of Aspies here will be shocked after reading this post, but it is very true. And anyway, I see so much empathy going on here on WP.

It's just annoying how empathy always gets pointed out to us more, even if an NT is obviously lacking empathy. Whatever the situation, it always turns out that it is us who's lacking empathy.

I think empathy is when you feel sad when the other person is sad, for example.
It is an unconscious reaction by neurotypicals.

Having empathy does NOT mean that you will analyse the situation, look for a solution and help the other person.

You can though have no empathy but be wanting to understand the situation, look for a solution and help the other person.

Empathy doesn't help you to understand the other person, it doesn't help you to analyse the situation and find solutions.

I think it is even opposite because your emotions influence your judgement.
Your emotions also lowers your objective distant analysis and lowers your critical mind.
Your emotions lead you to react, rather than think.

However, showing empathy is important because the others feel understood and supported (even when it is not the case).

If an emotional reaction doesn't make sense to you, it's hard to empathize with it.

Just like most women I know find it kind of funny when a guy gets a groin injury, while guys wince in sympathy. The guys know what it feels like, but not having balls makes it impossible to relate.

I completely agree with the Intense World theory. It's pretty clear from what I've seen that we experience empathy much more than NTs; to the point of it being overwhelming and us shutting down.

Exactly. I'm starting to get sick of people pushing their own empathetic interpretations on me just because it is more comfortable to believe I am like them. To believe I am a "nice" person just because I behave nicely.
It is not because I understand or sympathise or feel anything whatsoever. It's ethics. It's a belief system, a thought-through philosophy. Having no empathy does NOT make you a cruel, sadistic, dangerous, violent person, and ergo being a considerate, polite, helpful, gentle person is not proof of inherent empathy.
It pisses me off when people tell me I have empathy or fellow feeling just because I don't act violently toward animals, for example. When I try to explain that I have no reason to do so and an awareness of negative consequences if I do, and that I have a belief in the value of life and happiness for all beings, they smugly assert that "proves" I am empathetic and feel exactly as they do.

I agree with the definitions posted here. The reason why autistic people are thought to have a decreased capacity for empathy as compared to others is because of some tests headed by Simon Baron-Cohen in the 1990s (if I'm remember correctly). However, studies since then have found that the definition used by Baron-Cohen's group depended heavily on a linguistics. When the test was replicated with NTs who had a language deficit, they failed it. When it was replicated with aspies who had no language deficits, they passed it.

Another thing that is often overlooked is the use of sympathy instead of empathy.

Here is the dictionary.com definition:

"What is the difference between empathy and sympathy?

Both empathy and sympathy are feelings concerning other people. Sympathy is literally 'feeling with' - compassion for or commiseration with another person. Empathy, by contrast, is literally 'feeling into' - the ability to project one's personality into another person and more fully understand that person."

Sympathy is often a lot more useful than empathy. For example, do we really need to feel what a serial killer feels? Do we need to feel what an abused child feels? Sometimes it's better just to recognize that something else is there and have your own feelings about it. Disgust at the serial killer maybe, and sadness at the child. We can still be good people and take good actions without knowing what it's like to be them.

Empathy normally means the ability to put yourself in other peoples shoes. Lot of people seem to lack this or they are just choosing to not do this. But I realize that lot of people can't really understand unless they have been there so in that sense, lot of people lack it. Sympathy is the word we are looking for when they do express care and be non judgmental and feel sorry for them. For example let's say I read about a kid with ODD and the parent expresses how their kid always feels terrible how they act and treat others but their child expresses how they can't stop it and it's like they have a thing in their brain that won't allow them to be good. In that sense I start to feel sad for the child because I then see them as a victim of their condition even though on the outside they are this bully and they go and intimate people and are disrespectful and don't care about anyone and who they hurt. I cannot imagine having this condition that makes me do bad things and it's like I have a person in my brain controlling what I do and my body is the robot and my brain is the control room and there is a person inside of there that works in there that makes my body move and stuff. Is this empathy or sympathy I am feeling for this ODD child?

I can read about criminals and when I read about their abusive childhood and what they have gone through as children, I can't help but also feel bad for them feeling like the system failed them because instead of trying to give them a chance to get help and give them treatment, they lock them away for life or sentence them to death. But then again sometimes the system does try and give them treatment so they are locked away for a few years and then are let out and they go and commit another crime again so we have to draw the line somewhere for when enough is enough. Plus they are adults so they have a choice to get the help they are getting by the state and they also chose their actions and I have to remember there are lot of people out there who also were abused as children and they didn't grow up to commit crimes. But if they are mentally ill or intellectual impaired but yet are violent because they commit violent crimes and have done them in the past, I have to think should they live out in the real world and continue doing these things or be locked away to keep everyone safe from them. But yet I don't like the idea of them having capital punishment and I find it pitiful how prisons have become institutions basically for the mentally ill and I read one article about the elderly being in prison for crimes they committed when they were young and still competent and now they were old and needed caring so prison had become a nursing home for them. Would this be empathy or sympathy for them? Am I really putting myself in their shoes or am I just expressing sympathy?

I hear that psychopaths have empathy but they use it to exploit it because they can put themselves in your shoes but they just don't care because they don't have a conscious. But it's very common to say they don't have empathy because lot of people think empathy means to care about someone and not do bad things to someone. You can care about someone and not do terrible things to someone and still lack empathy apparently. I was told that caring about someone or helping someone is not empathy.

My husband's example of empathy is knowing on your own what to do without being told so for example let's say he is sick, I will just ignore him and not do anything unless he gives me a request and then I do it. To him that is not empathy, empathy would be if I just do it on my own like check up on him, asking what he needs and just doing things without being requested. Apparently NTs do this. But in my mind I see my husband is sick, he tells me he is not feeling good so in my mind he needs to rest and not be bothered because he is not feeling good, so I leave him alone. I won't let my kids down there or let them bother him and if my son wants to be down there, he has to leave his dad alone. When you're sick you need lots of rest and when I am sick, I want to be alone. So here is two different brains, two different needs, I am putting myself in their shoes for sickness but to them if I were sick so they kept bothering me, in my mind they might be the ones lacking empathy. In my mind if I want something, I would alert them. But is it really lacking empathy?

Also another one of his examples of empathy is you feel bad for something even if it's not your fault. My mother in law still feels bad to this day about my husband's condition because she got sick and coughed too hard so it ripped the umbilical cord from her uterus making my husband be two months premature and giving him brain damage. To me this makes no sense because it was not her fault so why feel bad and my husband tells me it's called empathy. When someone is beyond my control, I wouldn't feel bad. If I was a victim of something, I would not feel bad. I might only be angry for what happened or upset. But if I truly felt something was my fault because I felt I could have done different in that situation, then I would feel bad and be angry at myself.

We often think of empathy as a skill rather than the long-ago, neuronally ingrained bioevolutionary tool for survival that it actually is: the ability to inhabit the feelings of fellow beings (the word empathy derives from the Greek en, which means ‘‘in,’’ and pathos, meaning ‘‘suffering’’ or ‘‘experience’’); the ability to feel, for example, their fear over a threat; or thrill over a newly found food source; or sorrow over a loss, which has as much to do with the fabric of a community as any other. Empathy, in this sense, can be thought of as the source of all emotion, the one without which the others would have no register.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/magaz ... one-share#