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The challenge of demonstrating the existence of altruistic motivation is to show how empathic concern leads to helping in ways that cannot be explained by prevailing theories of egoistic motivation. That is, a clear case needs to be made that it is concern about the other person's welfare, not a desire to improve one's own welfare, that ...
Empathy is generally described as the ability to take on another person's perspective, to understand, feel, and possibly share and respond to their experience. [1] [2] [3] There are more (sometimes conflicting) definitions of empathy that include but are not limited to social, cognitive, and emotional processes primarily concerned with understanding others.
Empathy and sympathy are often mixed up, but they're totally different emotions. A psychotherapist explains the key differences between the two reactions:
The definition of compassion is often confused with that of empathy. Empathy, as defined by researchers, is the visceral or emotional experience of another person's feelings. It is, in a sense, an automatic mirroring of another's emotion, like tearing up at a friend's sadness.
Sympathy is the perception of, understanding of, and reaction to the distress or need of another life form. [ 1 ] According to philosopher David Hume , this sympathetic concern is driven by a switch in viewpoint from a personal perspective to the perspective of another group or individual who is in need.
Vicarious embarrassment, also known as empathetic embarrassment, is intrinsically linked to empathy. Empathy is the ability to understand the feelings of another and is considered a highly reinforcing emotion to promote selflessness, prosocial behavior, [14] and group emotion, whereas a lack of empathy is related to antisocial behavior.
Agreeableness is a personality trait referring to individuals that are perceived as kind, sympathetic, cooperative, warm, honest, and considerate. [1] [2] In personality psychology, agreeableness is one of the five major dimensions of personality structure, reflecting individual differences in cooperation and social harmony. [3]
Empathic accuracy was a topic of social psychological research in the 1990s. Social psychology explored how empathic accuracy relates to the concept of empathy in general. Social psychologists posit two main theories for how people empathize with others: simulation theory and theory theory. [8]