Clarifying empathy as skill so we can use it

Humans are social bonding mammals.

We bond as friends, lovers, communities, teams, and organizations.

We bond to feel safe.

We bond to procreate.

And we bond to achieve great feats.

We build our strongest bonds with a skill called empathy.

Empathy is the ability to understand and share the emotions of others. [1] 

Psychologists break empathy into two core components: cognitive empathy and emotional empathy.

You use cognitive empathy when you seek to understand another person’s perspective and emotions via logic. This requires curiosity.

You use emotional (or affective) empathy when you allow yourself to share another’s emotions once you understand them.

Using empathy, you can understand (“cognitive”) and share (“emotional”) someone else’s emotions.

When you apply empathy, it forces you to assess your own core beliefs and bias through the eyes of another person. This can be difficult.

It’s easier to empathize with people who are similar to us in belief, race, gender, and wealth. Like-minded people reinforce our core beliefs and hide our bias.

It’s harder to empathize with people who are different. Unlike-minded people challenge our core beliefs and expose our bias.

Empathy is a skill with many uses. We can use it to strengthen our existing relationships, to create new bonds, and to improve our self.

Notes

[1] There are as many definitions of empathy out there as there are words in this article. I created this definition to be concise and useful in the context of leadership, relationships, teams, and emotions. If you’d like to explore empathy further, here are some random notes on empathy from around the web.