Definitions vary, contributing to the challenge of defining empathy. Humans seem to make the same immediate connection between the tone of voice and other vocal expressions and inner feeling.ĭistinctions between empathy and related concepts Ĭompassion and sympathy are terms associated with empathy. The human capacity to recognize the bodily feelings of another is related to one's imitative capacities, and seems to be grounded in an innate capacity to associate the bodily movements and facial expressions one sees in another with the proprioceptive feelings of producing those corresponding movements or expressions oneself. Recognitions that are both accurate and tolerable are central features of empathy. The paradigm case of an empathic interaction, however, involves a person communicating an accurate recognition of the significance of another person's ongoing intentional actions, associated emotional states, and personal characteristics in a manner that the recognized person can tolerate. Yet it can be trained and achieved with various degrees of intensity or accuracy.Įmpathy necessarily has a "more or less" quality. However, the basic capacity to recognize emotions is probably innate and may be achieved unconsciously. The ability to imagine oneself as another person is a sophisticated imaginative process. On the other hand, if emotions are more centrally characterized by a combination of beliefs and desires, then grasping these beliefs and desires will be more essential to empathy. If, for example, emotions are taken to be centrally characterized by bodily feelings, then grasping the bodily feelings of another will be central to empathy. Since empathy involves understanding the emotional states of other people, the way it is characterized is derived from the way emotions themselves are characterized.
According to Martin Hoffman everyone is born with the capability of feeling empathy. Broken homes, childhood trauma, lack of parenting and many other factors can influence the connections in the brain which a person uses to make decisions in the future.
Understanding this allows a person to have empathy for individuals who sometimes make illogical decisions to a problem that most individuals would respond with an obvious response. Past experiences have an influence on the decision making of today. Having empathy can include having the understanding that there are many factors that go into decision making and thought processes. Definitions General Įmpathy definitions encompass a broad range of phenomena, including caring for other people and having a desire to help them experiencing emotions that match another person's emotions discerning what another person is thinking or feeling and making less distinct the differences between the self and the other. In modern Greek: εμπάθεια may mean, depending on context, prejudice, malevolence, malice, or hatred. Titchener translated Einfühlung into English as "empathy" in 1909.
Hermann Lotze and Robert Vischer adapted the term to create the German Einfühlung ("feeling into"). This, in turn, comes from ἐν ( en, "in, at") and πάθος ( pathos, "passion" or "suffering"). The English word empathy is derived from the Ancient Greek ἐμπάθεια ( empatheia, meaning "physical affection or passion").
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