3 . What is empathy?

Empathy is the ability to share and understand the feelings or emotions of others.

Types of empathy

There are three different ways to think of empathy. First, there is affective empathy. This is the ability to share the emotions of others. For example, someone watching a scary movie may feel scared when a character is scared. Second, there is cognitive empathy. This is the ability to understand the feelings of others. A good example is a counselor. Counselors may understand that someone they are speaking to is sad, but that does not mean the counselor becomes sad. Finally, there is emotional regulation.     1    . For example, doctors need to control their emotions when doing surgery on a patient. They cannot be afraid of hurting them or sad for them because they are sick.

Depending on the situation

    2     . It may not always be positive. For example, strong positive empathy feelings for members of our own family might lead to negative emotions like hate toward those we see as a threat.     3    . For instance, people might feel more empathy for people who look or act like them. People who are good at reading others’ emotions might also trick other people for their own benefit.

Measuring stick

    4     . These typically ask people to tell how much they agree with certain statements. They might say they strongly agree or they disagree. One statement might be, “It affects me very much when one of my friends is upset.” This would measure how much affective empathy someone normally feels.

Our brain has evolved to be able to quickly change under different circumstances.     5     . It can help us to understand others so we can help them. Sometimes, though, we need to be able to switch off our empathetic feelings to protect our own lives and those of others.