Just read the study from 2009: Aspies have TOO MUCH Empathy

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Regarding TV shows and movies: I tend to cry (or rather almost cry), but in the wrong places. Kind of embarrassing when I'm with others. If they notice, they usually don't get why I'm touched, and when they're in tears, I'm usually not affected. Ceremony, for example, can make me cry, independent of the context. The scenes that are meant to make people cry usually don't, except in a few cases - it could be it's due to them being so obviously designed for it, which makes go into an "oh, for goodness' sake" mode. If they weren't overemphasized like that, they'd probably affect me more.

OMG, I never knew there was a name for this! I have this as well. I can't hang out with angry/depressed people for too long before I start to feel that way myself. I don't really care what the other people are going through. It's just like their auras seep into mine or something.

Understanding of a person's feelings (sympathy) = you need to have experienced it in some way to understand (feelings)
Congruent to your own feelings (empathy) = you don't know what it's like, but you feel it anyway

There are two parts to Empathy, and this is typically where a Sociopath and someone with AS/Autism would differ.

There is Cognitive Empathy, which is actual ability to place oneself in someone's else's shoes, in order to determine how they might feel in a given situation. This is the Sociopath's strength.

Then, there is Emotional Empathy, which for some Auties/Aspies, is quite strong. This involves feeling/taking on the emotions of another person...it's often described as the other person's emotions being contagious.

Personally, I feel that Sympathy has two parts, as well, and I would also describe them as Cognitive and Emotional. I'd say "Emotional Sympathy" is feeling pity for someone else's bad situation, and wanting them to feel better. I'd say "Cognitive Sympathy" is the ability to offer support to that person. While those with AS/Autism do often possess that "Emotional Sympathy", it seems that "Cognitive Sympathy" is all but impossible.

Why do you keep posting this? You tried to defend these definitions with a Wikipedia article, which is no way supported what you're claiming here. These definitions are WRONG, and you are going to seriously confuse people by continuing to post them.

Although it's not required to have actually experienced the same thing as the other person for either definition, it's far more common to have actually experienced the same thing when you are feeling empathy.

I will break this down, again:

Sympathy: Feelings of concern or pity that result from seeing another person in a bad situation, or when that person has verbalized their situation to you. You need not have experienced what they are going through in order to feel pity for their situation. Often going along with Sympathy is an attempt to console the person. Sympathy is often expressed directly to the other person, by saying something like: "I'm so sorry for your loss..."

Empathy: Sharing or experiencing the same emotion as another person. You see that person sad, so you feel sad...you see that person crying, so you cry, etc etc. Empathy is almost like 'emotional contagion,' where you may or may not have experienced the same thing as the other person (but empathy is usually stronger if you have), but you take on their emotional state. Empathy is rarely expressed directly to the person...you would be unlikely to comment: "I have empathy for that person," because that simply means, "I'm feeling sad because they are sad." The common term "sympathy pain" is actually a misnomer, because it is empathy, not sympathy, which involves feeling what the other person is feeling. But, since empathy isn't a word commonly exchanged in a social context, I guess "empathy pains" wouldn't have the same ring to it.

Sympathy and Empathy aren't mutually exclusive, but they can and often do occur without the other. Some Empaths can take on the emotions of someone else, but have no idea why that person is feeling that way. Doctors often have sympathy for their patients, but not empathy, because that would make their job exceedingly difficult.

Movie example: If a girl's boyfriend just broke up with her in the movie, and she is crying, and you whisper "what a jerk", you are being SYMPATHETIC toward the character. However, if you are crying as a result of the character's tears, you are being EMPATHETIC toward the character.

Thanks, that makes sense. Now if just most people and even some doctors could learn the difference...

On an amateur level though, I'd perhaps even divide Emotional Empathy into two groups, or make a subgroup called Intellectual Emotional Empathy or something like that. I rarely feel the emotions of others. I do, however, intellectually feel for them (as in analyze their situation, realize this is a bad or good situation, and acknowledge their feelings in that situation), and thus also want their situation to stop (if it's bad) or continue (if it's good). So it's not touchy-feely empathy, but it has the same practical effect on my attitude towards the person. Perhaps that should be put into one of the sympathy categories, I don't know. Very bad situations may make me feel someone's emotions, though, and when that happens, it's usually overwhelming to the point of pushing me into a depression. If I realize I really hurt someone, that happens. When reading stories about severely unfair treatment due to disability, that happens. And so on. It has to be serious. Unjust actions (down to someone getting a parking fine when they didn't actually break the parking rules) can make me very angry, but that's more like righteous anger - I feel intellectual pity for the victim, and a very emotional anger against the perpetrator.

Also, weirdly enough, despite my pity/feeling for someone more often being intellectual than emotional (and hence I'd probably score lower in those categories, despite my reactions having the same effect - I think that's a weakness in the questionnaires), I have a certain ability to offer support. Not emotional support though, I panic when people cry. For that sake I panic when they're overly happy, too, especially if they start hugging me for no apparent reason (I have one friend who does that, I had to tell her to lower her hug frequency at a point because it stressed me out). However, due to my semi-detachment, combined with intellectual sympathy, I am, as I mentioned, often able to provide a counseling type of support. So people may not come to me to have a shoulder to cry on, but some friends do come to get advise. I'm good at remote-analyzing people (I've done that my whole life to figure out how to interact with them the next time we meet), so I can usually help people to figure other people out if I know them both. I also know a girl who probably has AS (but don't want to admit it), but isn't great at analyzing people. We often drink beer while I help her figure out people. Then when we meet them, with none of us managing to turn that knowledge into practice very well, but at least we're aware why the person acts like he or she does.

So I don't fit quite into those categories either, but they do make sense. Making categories for every peculiarity is impossible, I guess

What you are describing is Sympathy. That feeling of pity and desire to offer support are the hallmarks of Sympathy. So, your Intellectual-Emotional Empathy = Sympathy.

That's what I partially suspected, but I'm getting more and more confused since not even professionals who should know this (darnit!) manage to be consistent in their vocabulary. Much less regular people - empathy and sympathy are commonly viewed as synonyms in my language, at least, and both are also widely used. Empathy is just more "fancy", so people use it to seem intelligent. Just like "ethics" vs. "morals", but those have very clear and non-confusing definitions, despite 80% of the population just believing ethics to be a fancy/intelligent version of the same word. Still the dictionary meanings (for both word pairs) are the same as in English, so there really shouldn't be a difference in usage. And also, people keep referring to pity as a feeling, which for me is sometimes true and sometimes not. It's just as often an intellectual decision, or attitude, so to say. Useful, since I could detach easily when I worked in a funeral home. Useful for giving advise without having feelings shift my opinion too far, which would've made it useless. And it's also useful (and probably a good sign) that I can turn the pity *on*, not just off. This is giving me a headache!

I can detach myself to listen. I think I know what that break is now. In something I just posted.

That's me too. I lose sleep over newspaper articles, especially those involving animal cruelty. I love animals and would love to help in some way, but I fear having to deal with the subject, at first hand, would signal the end of me. The suffering of the innocent just really affects me. I remember several years ago seeing a news broadcast, about civil war in Sierra Leone. I was on holiday and it was on BBC World. I felt physically sick for days and it still affects me today. When I came home, I found that no-one I spoke to had heard about it. I don't know whether it was broadcast and it didn't make any impression on them or if it wasn't broadcast at all in the UK.

I am a man... reading this in a public place (B&N cafe)... and just reading your description alone made a tear come.

I just thought of something for whatever it's worth: I have to use empathy in my job. I'm a technical writer and I write the help for software, so I have to imagine what it's like for that person to use the software. If they want to use the new 3D feature I have to imagine a lot of the possibilities, like not just how to draw a cylinder, but how what kinds of things might they be drawing with the cylinder, maybe a camera, so they'll need to combine it with a rectangular box with a hole in it for the cylindrical lens, and so on. And not only that, but like most people working for a business, I need to imagine how they would need to understand how to do that efficiently. It's not enjoyable to read help and time is money. People want to know what they need to know as quickly and as clearly as possible and then get out of the help and produce something. That takes empathy for their situation.

But I certainly don't have sympathy for them, unless they lost their job because the help was so bad they couldn't figure out how to do their work and they had a stupid boss who blamed it on them. Then my heart would go out to them and I would try harder as a technical writer to give future users what they needed. But it seems like sympathy comes about when something happened to somebody who didn't cause it. So, for example, I wouldn't kill somebody's father, because I know how painful that would be and I don't want the father or their family or society to be in pain. But if someone else killed their father, then I would have sympathy for them. The killer wouldn't have sympathy, unless they did it by accident, but probably no one would want to hear about their sympathy at that point. Unless they were apologizing a million times, "I'm so sorry. I thought he had a gun and was going to shoot you!".....

No mention of animals in that article.

Humans well .

If you have an emotional reaction about someone's situation, this is sympathy.
If you have an emotional reaction that mirrors someone's emotions, this is empathy.

It's like the difference between reading a review of a book...and reading a book. Sympathy is all about feeling for someone, being happy that your friend got a promotion (Even if your friend might feel differently), sad that the mailman you chat with every afternoon was transferred because he no longer gets to enjoy your talks and insights (Even if you are why he transferred >.>). What you feel is about someone and whether you like or dislike etc the situation they are in, for their sake. It is quite independent of what they are actually feeling, really, although it can quite often be accurate. Just like the review, you are experiencing a reaction to another's situation. They read the book, and you are reading what they have to say about it. It's a level away from empathy, which is more about experiencing what they are experiencing. When you read the book, you are experiencing the book itself. With empathy, when your friend gets a promotion, and you are talking about it with them, and you start feeling stressed and anxious for no self induced reasons, and latter learn your friend isn't happy that he was promoted, but is stressed and anxious about whether or not he is up to snuff...you have experienced empathy.

You can be both happy for your friend, and/or feel his stress and anxiety about the new responsibilities. These two things are compatible, or they may be separate. Some people are more able or likely to do one over the other, some may be prone to engage in both, or any combination of degrees or frequencies.



There is also the ability to cognitively understand these two without feeling them. Earlier in this thread this was considered a subtype of the two.

You can have the knowledge of someone's situation, without engaging in feeling anything for them. This was referred to earlier as cognitive sympathy. This is indeed often a strength of a Psychopath, and they are also generally adept at pretending to have real sympathy because of it. This is also the subtype that allows someone to choose to fake sympathy if it suits tem. But it not always malicious in that way, most often people with this cognitive sympathy just "get it", they are aware that someone is in distress, and likely understand why they are, and often what would alleviate the distress if possible, this is just independent of whether they care or not. This can co-exist with real sympathy too. Like in the earlier example, you can understand that your friend worked hard and if he is promoted would gain more status, power, and money. You can understand that these things are often motivators and if he achieves this it is a good think, conceptually, for him to do. This is independent on whether you care or not though. It is just a knowledge, or understanding.

You can also have cognitive empathy. This is where one can understand that certain things can provoke emotional responses in others, and often a degree of ability to see or be aware of emotions when they are occurring. To be consciously aware of what emotions are transpiring in other people. This is also independent on whether you care or even experience the same emotion. If you see someone enjoying themselves and understand that what they are experiencing is joy, this would be cognitive empathy. (Side note…Psychopaths who are good at this as well… are really scary) This is the ability to comprehend emotions in other, and to recognize and identify them.



Now, all of those often work in concert with one another. And if people don't really break it down into what causes what in whom...then yea, there isn't much point in there being a distinction between empathy and sympathy. People who are less self aware often don't understand why there is even a distinction at all, even if it is explained. For some with more self awareness, there is often confusion because numerous others don't even bother to make the distinction...it is easy to understand why these two are so readily confused with one another. There are difference facets of each though, and the two are quite distinct.

Definitions (to clear up any confusion):

Sympathy:

Empathy:

The definition for Empathy is more or less correct, although quite vague.

Sympathy...not so much. Pretty much all of the definitions are describing Empathy to some degree.

Other portions of the Sympathy definition, such as: "mutual or parallel susceptibility or a condition brought about by it c : unity or harmony in action or effect <every part is in complete sympathy with the scheme as a whole — Edwin Benson>", are actually defining the word SIMPATICO, which is not at all the same thing.

Actually, I should redact my above statement that simpatico is not at all the same as sympathy. The two words do have similar origins (simpatico comes from the latin word for sympathy), but the two words have very different understandings. Simpatico is much closer to our understanding of Empathy, but much stronger. It suggests a oneness between two people. For instance, it could be said that E.T. and Elliot were in simpatico in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Elliot had empathy for E.T., but it went much further than empathy typically does...it's like they were one person.

I'm explaining all of this, because people, even Merriam-Webster, often confuse and/or combine the definitions of the two terms erroneously. The definitions above are clearly defining simpatico, because while you can be IN simpatico with someone, you can not be IN sympathy with someone; conversely, you can be in someone's sympathies, but you can not be in someone's simpatico. All of the definitions for Sympathy above are describing a state of being, which Sympathy is not. Sympathy is an expression, not a state of being. Empathy and Simpatico are both a state of being or feeling.