Empathy

In this week’s spotlight I wish to discuss empathy. Empathy is defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Empathy differs from compassion in that empathy refers to the ability to relate to another person’s pain vicariously, as if one has experienced that pain themselves, whereas compassion is the ability to understand and share the emotions and experiences of another person. Emotion and Empathy If you cry at sad scenes in films, tweet and post emotional links and jump to help the less fortunate, you could be genetically predisposed to ‘sensory processing sensitivity’, researchers say. California ...