Components of Interpersonal Empathy*
The development of these five components is grounded in recent cognitive neuroscience research, which documents that there are observable brain activities linked with the experience of empathy.
(a) Affective Response- Often referred to as “mirroring” in the literature, this is the physiological ability to simulate another person's experience. For example, if a person starts crying in front of you, even if you do not understand why, you too will feel like crying. Affective sharing can run through all types of emotions (happy, sad) as well as physical sensations (feeling pain when watching another person being physically hurt). Humans appear to be hard-wired to mimic one another, setting the stage for experientially connecting to another person.
(b) Affective Mentalizing – not all physiological reactions or mirroring come from the actual viewing of an event or experience. Often we are exposed to stories or explanations of events, and as we are hearing the information, our mind develops a picture of the events. This allows us to develop perceptions of another’s experiences. It may also trigger an affective or physiological response. When this occurs, we are “mentalizing” or imagining the event and potentially experiencing it as if it is happening to us as well.
(c) Self-other Awareness – once the affective response occurs, we need to recognize the difference between the experiences of another person from our own. We may feel like crying (as in the example above) but it is the other person’s experience and not our own. This moves empathic response into a cognitive or conscious arena.
(d) Perspective-taking – assuming that one successfully mirrors and then processes the affective response to understand that it belongs to the other person, it becomes possible to cognitively process what it might be like to personally experience the experiences of another. This is what we commonly refer to as “stepping into the shoes of another.”
(e) Emotion Regulation – the last component of interpersonal empathy helps us to move through these affective and cognitive processes without becoming overwhelmed or swept up into someone else’s emotions. This is the ability to sense another’s feelings without becoming overwhelmed by the intensity of the other person’s experience.
Components of Social Empathy
Social Empathy builds on interpersonal empathy with two additional components. These components reflect the larger societal context of people's lived experiences.
(f) Contextual Understanding of Systemic Barriers – to fully grasp the life experiences of groups different from ourselves, we need to understand their historical exposure to and impact from barriers built into the social, political, and economic systems of our society.
(g) Macro Self-other Awareness/Perspective-taking – with insight into the social, political and economic context we can more fully step into the lives of others who are different from us and cognitively process what it might be like to live as a member of another group.
Putting it All Together
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You may be wondering how all these components come together to form social empathy. Being empathic, that is, experiencing the feelings of others and making sense out of those feelings is very complex. It is likely that we will engage in each component to varying degrees in our process of developing empathy, and it may vary on any given day in different settings. The goal is to engage in the full array of empathy, involving all the above components. To do so requires understanding of each component and practice putting each component into action in our everyday lives.
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*This description of the social empathy components is drawn from the book Assessing Empathy (2017) by E.A. Segal, K.E. Gerdes, C.A. Lietz, M.A. Wagaman & J.M. Geiger (published by Columbia University Press). You can purchase your copy here.
Specific information on the seven components can be found on pages 121-122. Expanded discussion of the interpersonal empathy components can be found on pages 14-21, and on the social empathy components on pages 25-28.
Specific information on the seven components can be found on pages 121-122. Expanded discussion of the interpersonal empathy components can be found on pages 14-21, and on the social empathy components on pages 25-28.