Sympathy vs. Empathy — What's the Difference?

Sympathy is the perception, understanding, and reaction to the distress or need of another life form. According to 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.

Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position. Definitions of empathy encompass a broad range of emotional states.

A feeling of pity or sorrow for the distress of another; commiseration.

The ability to identify with or understand the perspective, experiences, or motivations of another individual and to comprehend and share another individual's emotional state.

Often sympathies An expression of such feeling

The projection of one's own feelings or thoughts onto something else, such as an object in a work of art or a character in a novel or film.

Mutual understanding or feeling between people

Identification with or understanding of the thoughts, feelings, or emotional state of another person.

Agreement with or support for an opinion or position

Capacity to understand another person's point of view or the result of such understanding.

Often sympathies A tendency to support a position or opinion

A paranormal ability to psychically read another person's emotions.

A relationship or affinity between things in which whatever affects one correspondingly affects the other

MDMA.

(Physics) A relation between bodies such that vibrations in one body cause sympathetic vibrations in another.

Understanding and entering into another's feelings

(Physiology) A relation between parts or organs by which a disease or disorder in one induces an effect in the other.

A feeling of pity or sorrow for the suffering or distress of another.

(in plural) The formal expression of pity or sorrow for someone else's misfortune.

The ability to share the feelings of another.

Inclination to think or feel alike; emotional or intellectual accord; common feeling.

(in plural) Support in the form of shared feelings or opinions.

Feeling of loyalty; tendency towards, agreement with or approval of an opinion or aim; a favorable attitude.

An affinity, association or mutual relationship between people or things such that they are correspondingly affected by any condition.

Mutual or parallel susceptibility or a condition brought about by it.

(art) Artistic harmony, as of shape or colour in a painting.

Feeling corresponding to that which another feels; the quality of being affected by the affection of another, with feelings correspondent in kind, if not in degree; fellow-feeling.

An agreement of affections or inclinations, or a conformity of natural temperament, which causes persons to be pleased, or in accord, with one another; as, there is perfect sympathy between them.

Kindness of feeling toward one who suffers; pity; commiseration; compassion.

The reciprocal influence exercised by organs or parts on one another, as shown in the effects of a diseased condition of one part on another part or organ, as in the vomiting produced by a tumor of the brain.

A tendency of inanimate things to unite, or to act on each other; as, the sympathy between the loadstone and iron.

Similarity of function, use office, or the like.

An inclination to support or be loyal to or to agree with an opinion;

Sharing the feelings of others (especially feelings of sorrow or anguish)

A relation of affinity or harmony between people; whatever affects one correspondingly affects the other;