This is a subject that has lead to many debates amongst my friends.

The dictionary definitions are spotty at best.

I have always believed that Sympathy is when you can relate to someones pain per experience.

Empathy is when you have not felt their pain personally, but are compassionate towards them anyway.

My friends disagree.  What are your thoughts on this?

Empathy - A sense of shared experience, including emotional and physical feelings, with someone or something other than oneself. ..
Sympathy - sharing the feelings of others (especially feelings of sorrow or anguish)

Teachers pay way too much to this distinction. I seem to hear about it every other class.

OP has it backwards. Empathy is when you know how they feel because you've experienced it. Sympathy is because you can imagine what they're going through must elicit certain emotions.

Here's the statement that Britannica says:

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/186011/empathy#tab=active~checked%2Citems~checked&title=empathy%20--%20Britannica%20Online%20Encyclopedia

based on this I would imagine my huntch is correct.

This is from wikipedia and could be seen as the oposite of my huntch.


Empathy is distinct from sympathy, pity, emotional contagion, and telepathy. Sympathy is the feeling of compassion for another, the wish to see them better off or happier. Pity is feeling that another is in trouble and in need of help as they cannot fix their problems themselves, often descibed as "feeling sorry" for someone. Emotional contagion is when a person (especially an infant or a member of a mob) imitatively 'catches' the emotions that others are showing without necessarily recognizing this is happening (Hatfield et al 1994). Telepathy is not a psychological phenomenon, but a supposedly paranormal phenomenon, whereby emotions or other mental states can be read directly, without needing to infer, or perceive expressive clues about the other person.

Pity is, "Things are bad for you, you seem as though you need help."
Sympathy is, "I'm sorry for your sadness, I wish to help."
Emotional Contagion is, "You feel sad and now I feel sad."
Empathy is, "I recognize how you feel."
Apathy is, "I don't care how you feel. "
Telepathy is, "I read your sadness without you expressing it to me in any normal way."
Schadenfreude is “Things are bad for you and I feel good about that.”


what do yu think?