The Experience of Empathy in Everyday Relationships: Cognitive and Affective Elements

Abstract

In the psychological literature, empathy has been regarded as either a cognitive, an affective, or a multidimensional phenomenon and there has been much controversy about its nature. This phenomenological study focuses on how the theoretical discussion of the cognitive-affective nature of empathy finds expression in the experiential realm. Findings in this study point to the conclusion that empathy has different meanings for different people, either when they are empathizing with another or when being empathized with. In examining the way people experience empathy in their every-day lives, in the context of real, meaningful, present relationships, it seems that both cognitive and affective aspects of this experience play a significant role and may appear either together or separately. While it is rare for empathy to exist without any cognitive understanding, we also found that the experiences of empathy that contain emotional components reflect a fuller and more meaningful relational experience. As for the meaning of the affective and the cognitive aspects, the experience of these elements is more complex and divergent than the way it is usually portrayed in the literature. Implications for future research are discussed.