How Empathy Works (+Can It Truly Be Taught?)

Empathy happens to us. It’s an indirect, non-primordial experience we don’t consciously control.

Yet, our inability to traditionally teach empathy doesn’t mean we’re powerless in its nurturing.

We can still encourage its growth by fostering self-awareness, maintaining a nonjudgmental and positive regard for others, sharpening listening skills, and enhancing self-confidence.

These elements don’t provoke empathy directly but create a fertile ground for what’s known as “empathic willingness,” an essential readiness to resonate with others’ emotions.

This guide not only seeks to decode the true essence of empathy but also proposes everyday practices that help create an environment where empathy can naturally thrive.

How Empathy Works

Empathy operates uniquely, different from other human interactions, primarily because it’s something that we come to realize only after it happens, much like how we recognize we’ve fallen in love only after the fact.

It unfolds in three distinct, yet overlapping, stages.

1. Self-Transposal: This initial phase involves active listening and a conscious effort to place ourselves in someone else’s situation. It’s not just about hearing their words; it’s about trying to understand their feelings, thoughts, and emotional state. It’s a cognitive attempt to step into their shoes.
2. Crossing Over: This stage represents a profound emotional shift, a leap from mere understanding to deeply feeling what the other person is going through. It’s characterized by a moment of shared emotion so intense that it’s often described as a “blow to the stomach.” During this transcendent connection, a brief loss of self-awareness occurs—we feel so deeply entwined with the other person’s emotions that our sense of self blurs, creating a feeling of unity.
3. Sympathy: In the final stage, we return to ourselves, regaining our individuality, but now stand in sympathy with the other person. It’s a moment of mutual understanding and emotional support, acknowledging the shared experience.

The most remarkable among these stages is the second one, “Crossing Over.”

It’s a rare, almost extraordinary experience of emotional bonding that most people yearn for, especially with life partners.

This profound connection combats feelings of alienation and despair, replacing them with a sense of being understood and united with someone else.

It’s a powerful, positive force that many of us seek throughout our lives.

Can Empathy Be Taught?

Empathy, while a natural human tendency, isn’t something ‘taught’ in the traditional sense.

It’s a complex communication process that evolves with our cognitive and emotional maturity, often blossoming during adolescence.

As we grow, certain stages of empathy, like self-transposal and sympathy, can be fostered because we can cognitively construct them.

However, the core of empathy—stepping outside oneself and ‘crossing over’ to feel with another—necessitates a secure sense of self and a level of cognitive development typically reached around puberty.

Contrary to the belief that young children display empathy, their comforting actions are often basic responses to distress rather than genuine empathic behavior.

As individuals mature intellectually and ethically, their capacity for empathy expands beyond superficial similarities with others to a deeper, more abstract connection with diverse individuals.

This maturation, especially noticeable among creative individuals with a keen interest in others, aligns with a growing sense of unity with all humanity.

While we can’t ‘teach’ empathy, we can certainly facilitate its development.

This can be achieved by encouraging self-awareness, improving listening skills, recognizing human commonalities, respecting differences, and building confidence in therapeutic abilities.

Ultimately, education should emphasize experiential learning focused on self-awareness and effective communication.

It cultivates the ground for empathy to naturally occur.

The Challenges In “Teaching” Empathy

1. Overcoming Societal Stereotypes and Biases

Society often imposes certain norms and expectations, such as the belief that showing too much empathy is a sign of weakness or is “not masculine.”

Overcoming these deeply ingrained stereotypes is a significant hurdle, as it requires individuals to embrace vulnerability in a way that may conflict with their learned societal roles.

2. Balancing Empathy with Personal Boundaries

Cultivating empathy isn’t about creating self-sacrificing individuals who constantly put others before themselves.

The challenge is in educating people to practice empathy while also acknowledging and maintaining their own emotional boundaries, ensuring they don’t lose themselves in the process of understanding others.

3. Cultivating Empathy in a Digital Age

In an era dominated by screens and virtual interactions, developing genuine empathetic connections can be difficult.

The subtleties of face-to-face communication, like body language and tone of voice, are often lost in digital communication, making it harder to foster a true empathetic understanding.

4. Empathy for Diverse Perspectives

It’s generally easier to empathize with those who have similar experiences or backgrounds.

The challenge comes in expanding empathy education to include understanding for those who might be fundamentally different or hold opposing views, thereby fostering inclusivity and tolerance.

5. Measuring the Effectiveness of Empathy Education

Unlike more tangible academic subjects, empathy’s intangible nature makes it difficult to assess and measure.

Educators face the challenge of determining whether empathy lessons are making a genuine impact on students’ behaviors and attitudes, and how these changes can be quantitatively evaluated.

Processes Most Often Confused With Empathy

Empathy, a nuanced emotional phenomenon, is often misunderstood and confused with other emotional responses such as sympathy, pity, personal distress, and behaviors like mirroring and identification.

Each of these processes bears similarities to empathy but differs in fundamental ways, often leading to misconceptions.

Sympathy vs. Empathy

Sympathy, detailed extensively by Max Scheler, is often described as “fellow feeling.”

It involves sharing feelings with someone about an external situation, like rejoicing together over a shared success or commiserating over a common disappointment.

Unlike empathy, sympathy doesn’t involve a deep “crossing over” into another’s emotional state. Instead, it’s a side-by-side experience where individuals share common feelings about something external.

While empathy is feeling with someone, sympathy is feeling for them, without fully engaging in their emotional world.

Pity vs. Empathy

Pity, a variant of sympathy, carries a sense of sorrow for someone else, typically implying a subconscious feeling of superiority or fortune on the part of the one who pities.

While empathy relies on emotional equality and shared experience, pity creates an imbalanced dynamic, with one person looking down on another’s misfortune.

Personal Distress vs. Empathy

Personal distress involves a self-centered reaction, where witnessing another’s suffering causes discomfort or anxiety, prompting a desire to alleviate one’s own discomfort rather than truly addressing the needs of the other.

Empathy, by contrast, entails tuning into the other person’s feelings and responding with care and understanding, prioritizing their emotional needs over one’s own comfort.

Identification vs. Empathy

Identification sees individuals aligning themselves closely with another person or group, adopting their values, mannerisms, or beliefs, often when one’s sense of identity is unclear.

While this can lead to strong emotional ties, it lacks the deep, shared emotional understanding that empathy brings.

At its extreme, identification can lead to a loss of one’s ego or individuality, which is not the case with empathy.

Self-Transposal vs. Empathy

Self-transposal, often mistaken for empathy, involves mentally placing oneself in another’s position.

While this is a component of empathy, empathy itself is more complex, encompassing a deep emotional connection and understanding.

Self-transposal is primarily a cognitive act of imagining oneself in another’s place, whereas empathy involves a profound emotional engagement.

Mirroring vs. Empathy

Mirroring involves the subconscious imitation of another’s behavior or emotions, a social tool that facilitates bonding but doesn’t require understanding or sharing another’s emotional state.

Empathy, however, demands a deeper emotional connection and a genuine shared understanding of another’s feelings.

These interactions, while similar to empathy, are distinct in that they are typically one-dimensional, intersubjective processes that one can initiate deliberately.

Empathy, in contrast, is a richer, three-stage process.

The most profound stage, the emotional “crossing over,” isn’t something that can be forced; it happens to us, often unexpectedly, when we’re genuinely open to connecting with another person’s emotional world.

Why Empathy Isn’t Easy for Everyone

1. Lack of Experience or Exposure

If you haven’t experienced a wide range of emotional states, or if you’ve lived in a fairly homogenous environment, you might struggle to understand experiences or feelings that are foreign to you.

Empathy grows through diverse interactions and experiences.

2. Emotional Overload or Personal Distress

Sometimes, your own emotions can be so overwhelming that you find it hard to take on someone else’s feelings.

Dealing with personal stress or trauma can consume all your emotional bandwidth, leaving little room for others’ experiences.

3. Upbringing and Environment

Your childhood and environmental influences play a significant role.

If empathy wasn’t demonstrated or valued in your upbringing, you might struggle to express it now.

Our early years are formative, and the behaviors and values instilled then carry into adulthood.

4. Mental Health Factors

Certain mental health conditions, especially those on the personality disorder spectrum like narcissistic or antisocial personality disorder, can impair your ability to empathize.

These conditions often require professional intervention.

5. Cognitive Dissonance

Sometimes, acknowledging others’ feelings means admitting that something is wrong, which can challenge our beliefs or require us to change our behavior.

This discomfort can lead us to shut down empathetically to preserve our current worldview or lifestyle.

Can someone who lacks empathy truly love?

Yes, but it’s complicated. Love involves a range of emotions and actions, and while empathy enriches the ability to love deeply, its absence doesn’t rule out love entirely.

However, a relationship might face challenges in depth and mutual understanding if one party consistently struggles to show empathy.

Is lack of empathy permanent?

Not necessarily.

While certain factors like specific personality disorders may make it difficult to cultivate empathy, most people can enhance their empathetic abilities through conscious effort, education, and therapy.

The brain’s plasticity allows for change throughout life.

Is it too late to learn empathy?

It’s never too late.

While our early years can set the stage for our empathic development, the brain’s ability to adapt, known as neuroplasticity, means we can learn new ways of thinking and behaving throughout our lives.

This includes developing a deeper sense of empathy.

Can a sociopath feel empathy?

Typically, sociopaths (those diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder) have a noted lack of empathy, meaning they struggle to understand or share the feelings of others.

However, some research suggests they may have a cognitive understanding of others’ emotions but lack the corresponding affective response, meaning they can recognize what someone is feeling but do not feel it themselves.

This area is still widely studied, and perspectives can vary based on individual cases.

Cultivating Empathy in Daily Life

1. Adopt a Stranger’s Lens

Daily, challenge yourself to see through the eyes of someone you don’t know.

It could be a passerby, a shopkeeper, or a person sitting alone in a park.

Without assumptions, imagine their current thoughts, struggles, or joys.

This habitual mental exercise plants seeds of empathy, nurturing an understanding that everyone has a unique story.

3. Engage in Emotional Echoing

When having a conversation, try mirroring not just the content of what’s said, but the emotions behind it.

If a friend shares excitement or frustration, respond with verbal and nonverbal cues that echo their feelings.

This practice acknowledges and validates emotions, fostering deeper empathetic connections.

4. Curate Empathy-Building Experiences

Actively seek activities that are out of your comfort zone—like volunteering in different communities, or participating in cultural rituals you’re not familiar with.

Such experiences expose you to diverse perspectives and realities, broadening your empathetic understanding.

4. Practice Mindful Consuming

Be deliberate about the media you consume. Choose books, movies, or podcasts that explore experiences different from your own.

It’s not just about diversity of characters or places, but diversity of thought and challenges.

This type of consumption habituates your mind to embracing, not resisting, the unfamiliar.

5. Empathy in Expression

Integrate empathy in your everyday language and actions.

For instance, make a conscious effort to use inclusive language, or offer assistance intuitively when you sense someone struggling, without them asking for it.

These continual small gestures become second nature, reflecting an internalized value of empathy.

“Teaching” Empathy To Kids

Promoting empathy to children is crucial for their emotional development and social relationships.

Empathy, the ability to understand and share the feelings of others, is a learned behavior that can be nurtured at any age.

Early Childhood

Start by teaching kids to identify and articulate their own emotions as well as others’.

Use direct language and read them stories that navigate various feelings.

Books such as “Listening with My Heart” and “The Day the Crayons Quit” are great tools.

Establish spaces or activities where children can practice empathetic actions in response to those emotions.

Mid-Childhood

Introduce games that require recognizing and acting out emotions, enhancing their emotional literacy.

Use visual aids to help them understand different feelings and foster diverse friendships to expand their emotional range.

Teach them that understanding others shouldn’t come at the expense of their own well-being by setting healthy emotional boundaries.

Late Childhood

Encourage reading more complex stories and engage in discussions about the characters’ feelings and motivations.

Activities that require collaboration can promote a team-oriented mindset.

Practices like simple meditation focused on kindness and compassion can nurture their empathetic skills.

Pre-Teens

Involve them in immersive activities like acting, where they can experience different perspectives.

Exercises like creating empathy maps can deepen their understanding of their own and others’ emotions.

Teens

Broaden their horizons with discussions about global issues, exposing them to diverse life experiences.

Encourage volunteering to bring empathetic understanding into real-world situations.

Activities that highlight commonalities in experiences can foster a sense of unity and shared empathy.

By nurturing empathy at every stage of childhood, we’re paving the way for a more understanding, compassionate society.

Children equipped with empathy can build healthier relationships throughout their lives.

Empathy and Personality Types

Empathy and personality types, particularly as they relate to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), intertwine in interesting ways.

The MBTI, one of the most popular personality tests, categorizes individuals into 16 personality types, based on four dichotomies:

Introversion/Extraversion, Sensing/Intuition, Thinking/Feeling, and Judging/Perceiving.

These dichotomies, along with the underlying cognitive functions, play a significant role in how different personality types experience and express empathy.

Introversion (I) / Extraversion (E)

Introverts tend to process their experiences internally and might take longer to respond to external stimuli, including the emotional states of others.

Their empathy is often deep and internalized, and they may need time to understand and process how they will respond to someone’s emotional needs.

Extroverts, on the other hand, are more outward in their emotional expression and may be quicker to respond with empathy because they process their experiences in real-time, through interaction with others.

They’re often expressive with their empathy and can make the person feel heard and supported immediately.

Sensing (S) / Intuition (N)

Sensing types are detail-oriented and grounded in reality, so their empathy is often based on practical expressions of help and support.

They relate to others’ problems by referencing concrete experiences and offering tangible assistance.

Intuitive types, however, look at the bigger picture and connect with others more through emotions, intentions, and symbolic gestures.

They’re likely to express empathy by trying to understand the deeper underlying issues and relating on a conceptual level.

Thinking (T) / Feeling (F)

Thinking types approach problems and decisions with logic and analysis, so their empathetic responses might be more about offering solutions than providing emotional comfort.

They empathize by understanding the situation and trying to fix the problem.

Feeling types prioritize emotions and values in their decision-making process, so they naturally align with the emotional state of others.

They’re often naturally empathic, providing emotional support and validation before jumping to problem-solving.

Judging (J) / Perceiving (P)

Judging types prefer structure and decisiveness, so their empathy might be expressed in a more organized manner, like following up, giving advice, or creating a plan to help.

Perceiving types are more spontaneous and flexible, so their empathy is often expressed more freely and can be adapted based on the present circumstances and the emotional cues they receive.

When it comes to cognitive functions (like Te, Ti, Fe, Fi, Se, Si, Ne, Ni), they determine how each type processes information and makes decisions, which in turn affects their empathetic style.

Extraverted Sensing (Se)

Empathy Connection: Individuals with strong Se are highly attuned to their immediate surroundings and the reality of the present moment.

They pick up on even subtle changes in people’s expressions and body language, making them responsive to unspoken cues of emotional distress or joy.

However, their focus on present experiences might sometimes hinder deep emotional connections.

Introverted Sensing (Si)

Empathy Connection: Si users often relate present experiences to past ones.

They are considerate and cautious, remembering personal details and past events, which helps them predict and understand someone’s emotional state based on previous behaviors or situations.

They might struggle, however, with situations unfamiliar to them.

Extraverted Intuition (Ne)

Empathy Connection: Ne types are innovative and see endless possibilities.

They are good at understanding different perspectives, which aids in empathizing with diverse individuals.

Their empathy manifests in brainstorming solutions to others’ problems.

However, they might become so caught up in possibilities that they miss the current emotional state of others.

Introverted Intuition (Ni)

Empathy Connection: Individuals with dominant or auxiliary Ni are focused on future outcomes and underlying patterns.

They may have sudden insights into people’s motives or emotions, even without explicit details.

They empathize by understanding the trajectory of someone’s emotional experiences, but may sometimes seem detached from the immediate emotional state.

Extraverted Thinking (Te)

Empathy Connection: Te users are objective and efficiency-oriented, which might make their form of empathy seem more practical and solution-based rather than emotional.

They show they care by helping others in tangible, constructive ways, often by solving problems or making situations better.

Introverted Thinking (Ti)

Empathy Connection: Those with Ti seek precision and analyze situations deeply.

They may show empathy by dedicating serious thought to understanding others’ emotional states, but they might struggle to express their findings or feelings outwardly, seeming somewhat aloof or detached.

Extraverted Feeling (Fe)

Empathy Connection: Fe is the cognitive function most naturally aligned with empathy.

Users are sensitive to the emotions of others, often adjusting their behavior to accommodate others’ needs and feelings.

They excel in creating emotional harmony and often take on a caretaker role.

Introverted Feeling (Fi)

Empathy Connection: Fi users have a deep, internal moral compass and are often very empathetic, experiencing others’ emotions profoundly.

They seek authenticity in their connections and will act according to their values, often showing empathy on a very personal and individualized level.

Final Thoughts

Empathy holds transformative power in both personal realms and educational spheres, acting as a catalyst for deeper connections and enhanced understanding.

It’s not a static trait but a dynamic skill that flourishes with deliberate practice and continual learning.

Committing to nurturing empathy daily not only enriches our own lives but creates ripples of positive change in our communities, underscoring the profound impact of walking in another’s shoes.