The Three Major Components Of Empathy

The concept of empathy is vastly misunderstood, when people hear the word empathy it may cause them to think of sympathy instead, and that simple error can cause one's idea of empathy to be inaccurate. To me, empathy is being able to understand feel what another person is experiencing. Empathy is crucial for resolving conflicts and is extremely useful at almost any job and in relationships of all types. While sympathy is important for comforting people on an easier level, it is not as applicable to be able to relate to another person because of an experience. Also, empathy can be seen as an effort to know how someone is feeling or thinking because of a past or current situation.
There are three major components of empathy: first there is affective empathy, also known as emotional empathy, which is “the capacity to respond with an appropriate emotion to another's mental states” (Goleman) then there is cognitive empathy “knowing how the …show more content…
For example, emotional empathy makes someone well-attuned to another person’s feelings and it makes them effective at caring for the sick and the old. A downside to emotional empathy is that they “lack the ability to manage their own distressing emotions can be seen in the psychological exhaustion that leads to burnout” (Psychology). Also, cognitive empathy helps people in managers positions are able to associate with their workers better. But, this type of empathy is commonly seen in the “Dark Triad” which are narcissists, Machiavellians, and sociopaths. The people who fall into this category can use empathy to manipulate their victims while showing no sympathy. Finally, compassionate empathy moves people to act and be more willing to help someone in a bad situation. The downside to this form of empathy is that if someone gets so preoccupied by another’s feelings that they neglect their own feelings and needs and can lead to depression or forms of