Written by the Fiveable Content Team • Last updated September 2025
Verified for the 2026 exam
Verified for the 2026 exam•Written by the Fiveable Content Team • Last updated September 2025
Definition
Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings, thoughts, and experiences of another person without necessarily experiencing them firsthand.
Related terms
Compassion: Compassion involves feeling empathy towards someone's suffering and taking action to alleviate it.
Perspective-taking: Perspective-taking is actively imagining oneself in another person's situation in order to better understand their point of view.
Emotional intelligence: Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to recognize, understand, manage, and express one's own emotions as well as perceive and respond empathetically to others' emotions.