The 3 Types of Empathy: How Empathetic are you?
Empathy is the ability to recognise, understand and share the thoughts and feelings of others. It’s the ability to put yourself into someone else's shoes and understand the way that they are feeling. In this blog, we’re going to delve a little deeper on this topic and explore the 3 different types of empathy defined by psychologists.
Rationally Empathetic
Sometimes referred to as ‘cognitive empathy’ or ‘perspective-taking’, this is an intellectual form of empathy in which you understand what other people are feeling by seeing yourself in their situation and see things from their perspective. Cognitive empathy is the least emotional type of empathy, as whilst you can understand how a person may be feeling, you don’t actually engage in their emotions and feel anything back. This type of empathy is something that successful business people possess, as it allows them to still display empathy towards the other person, however, not actually let their emotions get in the way, allowing them to make tough business decisions.
Emotionally Vulnerable
This type of empathy involves the process of emotional contagion, which is where a person quite literally ‘catches’ the emotions of others. This type of empathy is normally the first of the empathy types we develop as children. For example, when a mother smiles at her baby, the baby ‘catches’ her emotion and smiles back. Some people are simply more prone to this emotional contagion process, experiencing the same emotions, whether positive or negative, as a friend or loved one. Those who regularly engage in this type of empathy can sometimes get too emotionally involved in the lives of others, making them more prone to experiencing ‘empathy overload’.
Empathically Concerned
This type of empathy is what we imagine when a person is described as empathetic. Someone who is supportive, caring and helps others deal with difficult emotions. This type of empathy involves both the head and the heart. We see a person in distress, we’re concerned about it, and we want to help. Also known as compassionate empathy, this type of empathy is the middle ground between the two other types of empathy already described. Where being rationally empathetic can be seen as being under-emotional, and being emotionally vulnerable can be seen, in contrast, as over-emotional; being empathetically concerned finds the right balance between logic and emotion.
As you were reading the above three descriptions, some of you will have resonated more with a certain type of empathy than the others; some of you may have resonated with all 3 of them. Whichever one you resonated with, we are all likely to have a percentage of each type of empathy.
In Summary: empathy is a much sought after trait amongst the human race. Having the ability to recognise, understand and share the thoughts and feelings of others is so important and for some of us, is vital to us being successful within our careers. Being aware of the 3 different types of empathy and to what extent we possess each one will help us become more emotionally and socially aware and adapt to different situations.