Give me a breakdown of the definition of affective or emotional empathy.
What are the various forms of affective or emotional empathy?
Give Examples of each type of affective or emotional empathy.
Give 2 verified quotes that describes each from.
Affective empathy, also known as emotional empathy, is the capacity to share and physically feel another person's emotions as if they were your own. It involves experiencing an emotional response that mirrors what someone else is feeling, often described as "your pain in my heart" or feeling emotions as though they are contagious236. This type of empathy is rooted in our emotional or limbic brain and is closely linked to the phenomenon of emotional contagion, where one person's emotions trigger similar emotions in another5.
Affective or emotional empathy can be further broken down into several forms or subtypes:
Empathic Concern: Experiencing sympathy and compassion for others in response to their suffering. This form of empathy motivates people to care for and help others5.
Personal Distress: Feeling discomfort or anxiety in response to another person’s suffering. This is a self-oriented reaction that can sometimes lead to withdrawal rather than support5.
Affective Mentalizing: Using emotional cues like facial expressions, body language, and context to emotionally understand what someone else is experiencing5.
Somatic Empathy: Physically feeling another person's emotions in your own body, such as tearing up when seeing someone else cry or wincing when someone else gets hurt4.
Emotional Contagion: Automatically mirroring or absorbing another’s emotions, sometimes unconsciously.
Definition: Feeling compassion and a strong urge to help when witnessing another’s suffering.
Examples:
Comforting a grieving friend because you feel their sadness deeply.
Donating to disaster relief after seeing victims’ stories and feeling compelled to help.
Quotes:
“Empathy is about standing in someone else’s shoes, feeling with his or her heart, seeing with his or her eyes.”
Daniel H. Pink13
“Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another.” Alfred Adler23
Definition: Feeling overwhelmed, anxious, or distressed by another’s suffering, sometimes leading to withdrawal rather than support.
Examples:
Witnessing someone in pain and feeling so uncomfortable that you have to leave the room.
Hearing a friend’s traumatic story and becoming so anxious you can’t focus on helping them.
Quotes:
“Empathy is forgetting oneself in the joys and sorrows of another, so much so that you actually feel that the joy or sorrow experienced by another is your own joy and sorrow.” Dada Vaswani6
“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.” Henri Nouwen4
Affective Mentalizing
Example: Noticing a co-worker’s slumped posture and sad expression, and feeling a wave of sadness yourself, even before they say anything5.
Example: Sensing a friend's excitement through their animated gestures and tone, and feeling a surge of excitement within yourself.
Somatic Empathy
Example: Watching a movie character cry and finding yourself tearing up as well, even though you know it’s fiction4.
Example: Cringing or physically recoiling when you see someone stub their toe or get hurt, as if you felt the pain yourself24.
Affective or emotional empathy is essential for forming deep emotional connections, but it can also be overwhelming if not managed, especially in situations where the emotional intensity is high