Understanding Empathy and Its Types, Recognizing the Characteristics of Empathetic People

Kapanlagi.com - Everyone has feelings within themselves. In fact, sometimes someone can also feel the feelings of others. This kind of feeling is called empathy. Yes, empathy is a sensitivity that allows someone to feel the feelings of others at the same time.

Empathy is a positive feeling. Like other feelings, empathy is basically possessed by everyone. However, the level of empathy of each person may vary depending on the level of sensitivity. Someone with high empathy can position themselves as someone else. This means that with empathy, we can know how to behave towards others.

Empathy is something that can be learned and deepened. Therefore, read the following discussion about empathy that has been summarized from various sources.

1. Understanding What Empathy Is

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Quoted from verywellmind.com, empathy is the ability to understand others emotionally. Empathy enables someone to see things from another person's perspective. To some extent, empathy also allows someone to better understand another person's thoughts.

Empathy is a feeling or emotion that can develop with age. In fact, everyone has a sense of empathy since infancy and continues to develop into adulthood. Empathy can arise not only towards fellow humans but also towards other creatures such as animals and plants.

The presence of empathy can make people appreciate each other more. People with high empathy are also more easily moved to provide assistance. That is why empathy is considered a positive feeling.

2. Types of Empathy

Empathy is a feeling that can be possessed by everyone. However, the level of empathy can vary depending on the level of sensitivity. In addition, empathy also has several types. The types of empathy are as follows.

1. Affective empathy
The first type of empathy is affective empathy. This type of empathy involves a person's ability to understand the emotions of others. Therefore, they can respond appropriately. This type of empathy can cause someone to feel the sadness or concern of others.

2. Cognitive empathy
The second type of empathy is cognitive empathy. This type of empathy is the ability to understand the mental condition and thought process of others in certain situations. In psychology, this is called theory of mind about what others are thinking.

3. Somatic empathy
The third type of empathy is called somatic empathy. This type of empathy involves a physical reaction as a response to the feelings of others. For example, when you see someone feeling embarrassed, unconsciously you also blush or show other responses.

3. Benefits of Empathy

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As mentioned earlier, empathy is one of the positive feelings. This means that empathy brings many benefits in life. Not only for personal life, but also for social life. Some benefits of empathy are as follows.

1. Helping to Regulate Emotions
One fundamental benefit of empathy is being able to help regulate emotions. Those who have high empathy will be accustomed to experiencing various emotions. And, understanding how to respond to each emotion.

2. Encouraging Moral Formation
Empathy in oneself will help in the process of moral formation. How can this happen? Because with empathy, someone will be helped in identifying a behavior. Indirectly, this will also affect the process of forming moral values.

3. Increasing Solidarity
Someone who has empathy will easily feel the difficulties experienced by others. As a result, they will be more motivated to provide assistance. In the long run, this will have an impact on increasing solidarity in relationships.

4. Facilitating Social Relationships
Someone with high empathy is also relatively easier to establish new social relationships. Because they have the ability to read situations and understand others, so they know how to behave.

4. Characteristics of Empathetic People

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Basically, empathy is a feeling that everyone possesses. However, because its level depends on sensitivity, often someone's empathetic behavior is not easily noticeable. Nevertheless, there are actually several characteristics of people who have high empathy. Some of these characteristics are as follows.

1. Having a high level of concern.

2. Being able to understand other people's feelings.

3. Unconsciously often thinking about other people's feelings.

4. Truly listening to other people's stories.

5. Other people come to tell their problems and ask for advice.

6. Always or often trying to help others who are experiencing problems.

7. Recognizing the behavior of dishonest people.

8. Often feeling tired or overwhelmed in social situations.

Those are some of the explanations about empathy, which is the feeling of understanding other people's emotions. Hopefully, it is beneficial and can increase knowledge.

(kpl/psp)