Three Kinds of Empathy: Cognitive, Emotional, Compassionate

Daniel Goleman

"Paul and I had a long conversation recently, in which he described three very different ways to sense another person’s feelings.

The first is “cognitive empathy,” simply knowing how the other person feels and what they might be thinking. Sometimes called perspective-taking, this kind of empathy can help in, say, a negotiation or in motivating people. A study at the University of Birmingham found, for example, that managers who are good at perspective-taking were able to move workers to give their best efforts"...

Then, Paul told me, there’s “emotional empathy,” – when you feel physically along with the other person, as though their emotions were contagious....

Finally, there’s what Paul calls “compassionate empathy,” which I’ve written about using the term “empathic concern”...