Verywell / Kelly Miller
What Is Cognitive Empathy?
Cognitive empathy means that you might understand another person’s perspective.
It is also referred to as perspective-taking or putting yourself in someone else’s shoes.
Verywell / Kelly Miller
An example of cognitive empathy is if a friend doesn’t get a job they interviewed for.
When practicing cognitive empathy, we imagine what it might be like to be that person at that moment.
What Is Emotional Empathy?
Emotional empathy is when you’re free to feel another person’semotions.
This is emotional empathy.
What they are experiencing emotionally has an impact on your emotional state.
When we experience emotional empathy, we are moving from the cognitive perspective into a shared emotional experience.
Research indicates that there is a positive correlation between emotional empathy and a willingness to help others.
Cognitive Empathy vs.
Emotional Empathy
The kind of empathy we experience can really shape how we respond to others in our lives.
However, there are distinct differences between these two types of empathy.
The following is a simple example of what this might look like.
A shared emotional experience can feel quite comforting and healing to someone in need.
What Is Compassionate Empathy?
Compassionate empathy refers to having sympathy orcompassionfor another person and their circumstances.
Out of the three types of empathy, compassionate empathy is often seen as the most caring.
It often contributes toprosocial behaviors, such as volunteering to help a charitable organization.
That’s when you could get more creative in solving problems."
As we live our lives at work and home, we continually interact and balance relationship dynamics.
When welack empathy, we are unable to develop and nurture those interpersonal connections.
This leads tostrained relationships,broken trust,loss of relationships, and isolation.
It becomes more difficult to repair conflicts, work collaboratively, orsolve problemswhen we don’t practice empathy.
Our society doesn’t just rely on empathy; it thrives on it.
Empathy helps build strong social connections and encourages progress.
Research suggests that narcissists possess the cognitive ability to use cognitive empathy.
Is Empathy Genetic?
Like other emotions, empathy is a complex response influenced by biology, psychology, and experiences.
Research indicates that activity in this part of the brain is connected with our ability to feel empathy.
Nature vs. Nurture
You may have heard the phrase “nature versus nurture.”
Research indicates that tipping the scale this way may harm your emotional well-being, health, and relationships.
Our bodies respond to the other person and their emotional experience during emotional empathy.
Feelingemotionally dysregulatedcan become overwhelming and result in feelingburned out.
Not Enough Empathy
Some people are better at practicing cognitive empathy.
Practicing Emotional and Cognitive Empathy
Practicing both cognitive empathy and emotional empathy can be challenging.
But both can be learned with intentional and consistent practice.
Here are a few tips to assist with this.
To correct this, turn down the volume on your own voice and turn up the volume on theirs.
Asking the person questions about their experiences lets them know that you areactively listeningand that you want to understand.
This helps them feel seen and heard.
Even though we are trying to be helpful, this can leave people feeling unseen and unheard.
Offer space for people to share while remembering that you are not responsible for “fixing” them.
Healey ML, Grossman M.Cognitive and affective perspective-taking: Evidence for shared and dissociable anatomical substrates.Front Neurol.
2018;9:491. doi:10.3389/fneur.2018.00491
Ratka A.Empathy and the development of affective skills.Am J Pharm Educ.
In: Ventura S, ed.Empathy - Advanced Research and Applications.
In: Gibbs P (eds)The Pedagogy of Compassion at the Heart of Higher Education.
2022;185:111238. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2021.111238
Covey S.The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
2018;13(1):e0190712.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0190712
23andMe.The genetics of empathy.
Demetriou H.Nature versus nurture: The biology and psychology of empathy.
In:Empathy, Emotion and Education.
2016;20(1):47-63. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2015.09.003
