What is empathy?

Many people confuse empathy with sympathy; however, the two are quite distinct. Brene Brown, a researcher of empathy, has stated that "Empathy fuels connection, while sympathy drives disconnection." Theresa Wiseman has identified the following four qualities of empathy.

4 Qualities of Empathetic People

An empathetic person:

1. Is able to see the world as others see it—this requires putting our stuff aside to see the situation through the eyes of a loved one

2. Is nonjudgmental—judgement of another person's situation discounts the experience and is an attempt to protect ourselves from the pain of the situation

3. Understands another person’s feelings—we need to be in touch with our personal feelings in order to understand someone else's. This also requires putting aside "us" to focus on our loved one

4. Communicates one's understanding of that person’s feelings—rather than saying, “At least...” or “It could be worse...” try, “I've been there, and that really hurts,” or (to quote an example from Brown) “It sounds like you are in a hard place now. Tell me more about it.”

View this 3-minute RSA video of Dr. Brene Brown discussing the difference between empathy and sympathy.

Read Building Empathy in Classrooms and Schools by Brianna Crowley and Barry Saide

This work is by Teaching & Learning Innovations at CI and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.