Empathy Models

Hugging someone who is hurt demonstrates empathy.

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. Types of empathy include cognitive empathy, emotional (or affective) empathy, somatic, and spiritual empathy.

A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. Representational models can be broadly divided into the concrete (e.g. physical form) and the abstract (e.g. behavioural patterns, especially as expressed in mathematical form).

Empathy models provide an abstract representation of empathy as it is observed and understood. A range of empathy models are described in academic literature. Refer to the See Also section below for examples.

Resources

• Empathy Model - A Wikiversity Action Research learning project

See Also

• Wikipedia: Empathy
• Jefferson.edu: Concepts and Models of Empathy: Past, Present, and Future
• BMC: Empathy and big five personality model in medical students and its relationship to gender and specialty preference: a cross-sectional study
• Frontiers: A Dual Route Model of Empathy: A Neurobiological Prospective