The Empathy Matrix
I recently spoke with a designer who has created user experiences for large companies, including Amazon's Alexa. He spoke about the importance of empathy, and how, while we as designers talk about it often, we're not really engaging in it. He described a matrix of feelings, that looks something like this:
If someone is fully attached to a situation, but only thinks about themselves, their reaction could be seen as Pity. "Oh, look at those poor people in that situation. I'm so different from them, and I feel so badly that they are stuck there."
If they are completely focused on themselves, and utterly detached, their reaction could become Disdain. "I don't really care what happens to those people. I just can't relate. Whatever situation they are in, they probably brought it upon themselves."
Being fully attached to a situation, and focused on others brings Compassion. Compassion requires action. "Look at those people! We have to mobilize and help them now! Forget my lunch--let's go!"
The fourth, and maybe most mysterious quadrant, is Empathy. Its when you are focused on others, but detached from the situation. It may sound something like this: "I understand how you feel. This must be very difficult. Allow me to share this pain with you." Here is where Empathy can grow. I needed some help understanding this, so I turned to the dictionary.
The definition of Empathy (Mirriam-Webster)
If someone is fully attached to a situation, but only thinks about themselves, their reaction could be seen as Pity. "Oh, look at those poor people in that situation. I'm so different from them, and I feel so badly that they are stuck there."
If they are completely focused on themselves, and utterly detached, their reaction could become Disdain. "I don't really care what happens to those people. I just can't relate. Whatever situation they are in, they probably brought it upon themselves."
Being fully attached to a situation, and focused on others brings Compassion. Compassion requires action. "Look at those people! We have to mobilize and help them now! Forget my lunch--let's go!"
The fourth, and maybe most mysterious quadrant, is Empathy. Its when you are focused on others, but detached from the situation. It may sound something like this: "I understand how you feel. This must be very difficult. Allow me to share this pain with you." Here is where Empathy can grow. I needed some help understanding this, so I turned to the dictionary.
The definition of Empathy (Mirriam-Webster)
: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
The definition of Compassion (Mirriam-Webster)
:sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it
Mirriam-Webster goes further, giving their take on the difference between Empathy and Compassion:
(From Mirriam-Webster)What is the difference between empathy and compassion?
Some of our users are interested in the difference between empathy and compassion. Compassion is the broader word: it refers to both an understanding of another’s pain and the desire to somehow mitigate that pain:
"Our rationalizations for lying (or withholding the truth)—"to protect her," "he could never handle it”—come more out of cowardice than compassion."
— Eric Utne, Utne Reader, November/December 1992
Sometimes compassion is used to refer broadly to sympathetic understanding:
"Nevertheless, when Robert Paxton's "Vichy France" appeared in a French translation in 1973, his stark and devastating description ... was rather badly received in France, where many critics accused this scrupulous and thoughtful young historian either of misinterpreting the Vichy leaders' motives or of lacking compassion."
— Stanley Hoffmann, The New York Times Book Review, 1 Nov. 1981
Empathy refers to the ability to relate to another person’s pain vicariously, as if one has experienced that pain themselves:
"For instance, people who are highly egoistic and presumably lacking in empathy keep their own welfare paramount in making moral decisions like how or whether to help the poor."
— Daniel Goleman, The New York Times, 28 Mar. 1989
"The man thought all this talk was fine, but he was more concerned with just getting water. And, if I was going to be successful on this mission, I had to remember what his priorities were. The quality you need most in United Nations peacekeeping is empathy."
— Geordie Elms, quoted in MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, Autumn 1992
In some cases, compassion refers to both a feeling and the action that stems from that feeling:
"Compassion, tenderness, patience, responsibility, kindness, and honesty are actions that elicit similar responses from others."
— Jane Smiley, Harper’s, June 2000
while empathy tends to be used just for a feeling:
"She is also autistic, a disability that she argues allows her a special empathy with nonhuman creatures."
— Tim Flannery, The New York Review of Books, 29 April 2009
The definition of Compassion (Mirriam-Webster)
:sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it
Mirriam-Webster goes further, giving their take on the difference between Empathy and Compassion:
(From Mirriam-Webster)What is the difference between empathy and compassion?
Some of our users are interested in the difference between empathy and compassion. Compassion is the broader word: it refers to both an understanding of another’s pain and the desire to somehow mitigate that pain:
"Our rationalizations for lying (or withholding the truth)—"to protect her," "he could never handle it”—come more out of cowardice than compassion."
— Eric Utne, Utne Reader, November/December 1992
Sometimes compassion is used to refer broadly to sympathetic understanding:
"Nevertheless, when Robert Paxton's "Vichy France" appeared in a French translation in 1973, his stark and devastating description ... was rather badly received in France, where many critics accused this scrupulous and thoughtful young historian either of misinterpreting the Vichy leaders' motives or of lacking compassion."
— Stanley Hoffmann, The New York Times Book Review, 1 Nov. 1981
Empathy refers to the ability to relate to another person’s pain vicariously, as if one has experienced that pain themselves:
"For instance, people who are highly egoistic and presumably lacking in empathy keep their own welfare paramount in making moral decisions like how or whether to help the poor."
— Daniel Goleman, The New York Times, 28 Mar. 1989
"The man thought all this talk was fine, but he was more concerned with just getting water. And, if I was going to be successful on this mission, I had to remember what his priorities were. The quality you need most in United Nations peacekeeping is empathy."
— Geordie Elms, quoted in MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, Autumn 1992
In some cases, compassion refers to both a feeling and the action that stems from that feeling:
"Compassion, tenderness, patience, responsibility, kindness, and honesty are actions that elicit similar responses from others."
— Jane Smiley, Harper’s, June 2000
while empathy tends to be used just for a feeling:
"She is also autistic, a disability that she argues allows her a special empathy with nonhuman creatures."
— Tim Flannery, The New York Review of Books, 29 April 2009
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With true empathy, you can keep yourself separate from the situation, while feeling the full effects of it. The viewpoint of the people stuck in it. It requires steeling yourself for the discomfort of seeing something through the eyes of someone who is not you. Who doesn't see the world exactly the way you see it. Whom you may disagree with. This would be where Detachment comes in. If you can experience all the feels of the Other without losing your own sense of Self, you can view the problem from a detached place of understanding, that will allow you to create something that is truly created for the experiences your audience is having, to the best of your abilities.
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