皆さんこんにちは。
ILC国際語学センターです。

John先生のミニレッスン、第4回目はEmpathyとSympathyの違いについてです。

早速John先生の解説を見てみましょう。

Empathy or Sympathy?

In the GLLT Presentation course, we often say you need to empathize with your audience when giving a presentation; "step into their shoes"; be them! Then, use that understanding to plan your presentation. However, you can also sympathize with their work situation, especially if it is a difficult one; "understand where they are coming from". This idea of sameness, or similarity is common to both words, empathy and sympathy. How can we differentiate between these words? There are similar elements in both words, and, yes, it can be confusing.

Looking at the etymology might help. Both words are formed from “pathos” the Greek word for emotion. The word sympathy is from syn, "together" + pathos, "feeling", a “fellow feeling”. Others along with yourself are involved in experiencing a community of feelings, typically, a feeling of support for another person, or the feeling that you care about and are sorry about someone else's trouble, grief, misfortune, etc. You feel the same characteristics of the group. You don’t need to feel the actual emotion, but you can imagine what that feeling would be like.
On the other hand, empathy is from en, "in" + pathos, "feeling"; it’s an “in-feeling”, a passion state of emotion, a projection of the quality or emotion viewed in the mind's eye. Empathy IS feeling what others feel, not just understanding what they feel or just giving support. It is feeling the same emotion as the other.
Another way to look at this difference in meanings comes from art appreciation. I am sure we have all experienced listening to our favorite song or have looked at a great artwork and have been moved emotionally. The work of art resonates within us; it somehow defines who we are. We commune with it; we and the art we attend to are one. This is empathy, the viewer's ability to project his personality and feelings into the viewed object.

In other words, getting back to the GLLT presentation situation, when we empathize with our audience, we understand them in a much deeper way than just recognizing their difficult work situations (sympathy). Because empathy is a union of feelings, the presenter adjusts his or her delivery to get the audience to project that feeling back onto the delivered message. The speaker’s passion connects with the audience; the audience feels the passion and projects similar feelings back onto the speaker and the message. This connection is the empathy attained in successful presentations.
If this is still confusing to you, one last way to make this distinction clearer will be as simple as surfing for web images for these words on the Internet. Search “empathy” and you get a wide variety of philosophical sayings, motivational images, and leadership qualities; search “sympathy” and all you get are sympathy cards!

Connecting emotionally is empathy, directly being, or emotional equality; connecting rationally is sympathy, mirroring or duplicating a similarity. From the art example above, empathy is the gift of the appreciation of the experienced passion of beauty; sympathy is the card you send to the one who lacks empathy.

次回は1月中旬に更新予定です。

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