Topic 3 Empathy

The ability to sense, understand and share the feelings of others is empathy. Researchers coupled the terminus with the ability to imagine what someone else might be feeling or thinking.

They also differentiate between:

• Affective empathy – sensations and feelings we get in response to others’ emotions;
• Cognitive empathy – ability to identify and understand other people’s emotions.

Empathy has deep roots in our brains and bodies and has been associated with two different pathways in the brain:

• One aspect of empathy can be traced to mirror neurons when we observe someone else perform an action in much the same way as we would perform that action by ourselves (so called mapping, mirroring);.
• There is genetic basis to empathy – people can enhance or restrict their natural empathic abilities.