Per Merriam-Webster, the definition of empathy is “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner.”
In today’s society, empathy is often misunderstood and incorrectly judged solely based on one’s social interactions. This narrow viewpoint undermines empathy’s true complexity and depth as a human emotion. Empathy is not always seen. I can’t look at someone and tell if they are being empathetic. Empathy is an emotion that is not easily seen or understood.
This is why autistic people are incorrectly judged as not having empathy. The test is wrong. I took Strength Finders (I don’t recommend it for most neurodivergent people), and all the empathy questions were about how you interacted socially.
Excuse me? You don’t have to be socially adept to have empathy. Empathy is an emotion that is in you. It’s not about how you interact with people. It’s about how you feel.
Judging empathy by how a person interacts with others can discount introverts, people with social anxiety, some autistic people, shy people, and others who may not outwardly express their emotions. Take, for example, a person deeply impacted by witnessing a stranger’s distress in a public setting. They might not rush to console the stranger or engage in verbal communication, but their internal experience of empathy is genuine and profound. Such actions, although silent, are a testament to the presence of compassion without reliance on social interaction or expression.
Am I going to console a stranger? NO. I have social anxiety and am profoundly introverted. But I have empathy. Am I feeling that person’s pain? YES. Will I think about the incident for several years? Yes. I will always be deeply impacted by it, but by neurotypical standards, if I don’t help, I don’t care, which doesn’t make sense to me.
A neurotypical social person definitely did the definition of empathy. They don’t think of us as social beings. They just don’t get it. It’s not a social thing. It’s an emotion. It’s a feeling. It’s real. And it’s not just for social interactions.
Imagine someone witnessing another person visibly upset; they may not approach that person or engage in conversation but still feel deep empathy and concern for their well-being. This feeling doesn’t count for people who highly value social interaction.
So disregard most personality tests. I have scored high in empathy on some tests and low on others. So not all tests judge empathy based solely on social interaction. But most do, in my experience.
Empathy can be conveyed in numerous ways that don’t necessarily involve verbal dialogue.
I don’t care about Strength Finders. I care about how autistic people have wrongly been called non-empathetic while people with ADHD have been called empathetic — nothing against people with ADHD. I no longer have that diagnosis because of the age cut-off, but I have all the symptoms. People with ADHD are seen as talkative and outgoing. So they are less likely to be seen as unempathetic.
Empathy can manifest in various forms, and it is crucial to recognize and validate these alternative methods of showing support and compassion. We need to stop equating empathy with verbal communication. And stop only valuing social communication.
You can check out other things I’m working on here. Thanks for reading!
