I learned the definitions of empathy and sympathy differently?

10 Comments

I noticed that I seemed to be seeing the word "empathy" a lot in comparison to the word "sympathy", and I wondered why that is. I did a Google search, and apparently the word "sympathy" has been demonized so that it now means "careless". "Sympathy" in some circles means that you're barely even listening and you're just throwing out random wows and sorrys. Has the word always been that way and I just never noticed?

When I learned the words back in school, we were taught that to have empathy for someone, you had to have actually experienced their trouble yourself. You can't have empathy for an ill that you've never experienced. You can still feel sorry for them and try to put yourself in their shoes, but that's not empathy, that's sympathy. There's nothing wrong with that, both of them are good things to have and are in short supply.

I thought maybe I just wasn't remembering it correctly, so I looked it up. Here's the dictionary definitions for the two words:

Sympathy:
(According to Google):
1. Feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune.
2. Understanding between people; common feeling.
(According to Merriam-Webster):
1. An affinity, association, or relationship between persons or things wherein whatever affects one similarly affects the other.
2. Inclination to think or feel alike : emotional or intellectual accord.

Empathy:
(According to Google):
The ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
(According to Merriam-Webster):
The action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner. Also : the capacity for this.

Wikipedia makes the distinctions even less clear:
Sympathy:
The perception, understanding, and reaction to the distress or need of another life form. This empathic concern is driven by a switch in viewpoint, from a personal perspective to the perspective of another group or individual who is in need.
Empathy:
The capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position. Definitions of empathy encompass a broad range of emotional states.

Not sure what to think. The rest of the internet doesn't seem to have any idea what either word means, and are just using "empathy" as a buzz word. How do you define them?

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Comments ( 10 )
  • RoseIsabella
    4 years ago

    I appreciate this post!

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  • [Old Memory]
    4 years ago

    yawn

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  • [Old Memory]
    4 years ago

    I just use the definitions on Google. They make sense when considering the Greek meanings of the prefixes.

    sym = "together"

    em = "within, in"

    "Pathy" denotes feelings.

    "Empathy" is very deep and intimate. I think it usually works by entering into someone else's feelings through the portal of understanding that is one's own experience.

    Like, in seeing someone else's suffering, one could be reliving their own through them, and get the sense of feeling the other's feelings as their own. "I know how it feels. I've been there." That type of thing.

    Some of that might seem contradictory, and maybe that's because on a philosophical level, I doubt empathy actually exists. I don't think it's possible to enter into someone else's feelings, but regardless, that's what the word literally means and how empathy is generally understood as working.

    "Sympathy" is less deeply personal and experience based than empathy. It's like a general understanding and respect of how pain and other feelings affect others, which causes one to share in those feelings to an extent. "That's very sad. I feel bad for you."

    Notice the distancing language- "That's" "for you".

    You can feel deep sympathy, but it means more of an outsider's perspective than empathy. Sympathy is felt more easily and commonly than empathy, I presume.

    Anyway, the combination of either with action = compassion, the thing that actually makes a difference.

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    • Anonnet
      4 years ago

      I don't see why that kind of empathy wouldn't exist if you had experienced their same misfortune.

      I also don't understand where the difference in language comes from, since that implies that empathy results in a difference in speech. Maybe it does, but boiling it down like that means empathy can be emulated as long as you know what to say. I can just avoid using distancing words and sound like I understand their experience, even though I don't.

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      • [Old Memory]
        4 years ago

        The sentence examples weren't really meant to say, "This is what people with empathy or sympathy will always say", but I gave those examples to show what I think they're like and how they compare, I guess.

        Imo, even if you've experienced what someone else has, the most you can do is relate to it strongly. I think there's a boundary between individuals that's impossible to step over, so I don't see how something empathy (being inside someone else's feelings or perhaps, understanding their heart from the inside) is possible. Not saying I know I'm right, it's just how I feel about it.

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  • LloydAsher
    4 years ago

    This is the kind of post I would make at 2am being on a red bull essay streak.

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  • Wellyoudliketoknoweh
    4 years ago

    I’ll try to state how I’d define it but it might not make any sense too

    I guess sympathy is more about what you and only you feel about that person from the outside, mostly seeing about how that person might be in pain or in a bad situation. It may be more of a social norm or a trick that our brain plays us when we’re not empathetic in many ways, to help sustain the others who are hurt because it pains our brain to be reminded of pain. Also kinda to make our society stay together better.
    Its a big topic, I don’t know how to explain it, but it is needed because empathy and the good ol instincts are less available for most.

    Empathy would kind of be the next step I guess? This is not about you at all, this is about being able to feel what another one feels, not based on your thoughts about that thing but rather that persons thought on that thing. Empathy is not only about feeling sad when another feels sad but also about feeling better when another feels better.

    For example: a classmates close one has died, in the case of empathy you can see the sadness in their eyes and just immediately start being sad also, though you’d have no reason to be and normally may not even care about that person. It feels like feeling others emotions all the time except yours about a topic.
    In sympathy’s case you’d have to ask first before feeling sad for that person because if any of your close ones would die you would be sad too. This is sometimes annoying too when you are very emotional in what has happened to you but are unable to slip into another ones perspective.you might be missing the point in another ones feeling or situation

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    • Anonnet
      4 years ago

      I think that's a little contradictory and doesn't match reality. In the case of sympathy, it sounds like you're saying that you don't truly feel sad for them, but your brain begins to make you feel sad only in imitation of their sadness. You may even have to ask them beforehand so you know what you should be feeling, despite seeing the sadness in their eyes and demeanor. You're also disregarding their thoughts on the subject they're talking about because you only care about your own.

      That sounds less like someone that's merely lacking instincts, and more like a full-blown sociopath. Not to say there aren't people like that, but I think that's driving too wide of a wedge between the two words, since you're presenting two extremes. You're either feeling the full brunt of their emotions immediately with no input of your own, or you're feeling nothing at all for that person, and are reacting only to how you would feel if that thing happened to you, if that. There has to be something between those two ends.

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      • Wellyoudliketoknoweh
        4 years ago

        Yeah I tend to go into extremes.
        Though I wouldn’t say it’s meant to sound like a sociopath in any way, because you are actually able to feel those emotions. The thing is I always connect sympathy with something people around me say, like „oh it would be so horrible if that would happen to me and I am very sorry for that person“. First is the thought, how would I feel and then, that person must feel horrible while with empathy you wouldn’t have that first step. With sympathy you do have to feel sad first and then about the others, but you do feel it and hopefully don’t fake it
        English is not my first language so I might also understand it differently

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    • [Old Memory]
      4 years ago

      If you don't mind, is the seeing sadness in someone's eyes and then immediately feeling sad yourself thing something that happened to you?

      If so, did you experience this any time after losing someone that you loved? Do you know if you were able to experience that before?

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