Empathy and Sympathy. Communications & Media Essay

Empathy and Sympathy
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* Topic: Empathy and Sympathy
* Introduction
Although sympathy and empathy appear similar and are sometimes used in place of the other, they are two very different words. The two words have distinct meanings that bring out their difference and the variation in the events leading to one another.
* Thesis
Empathy and sympathy describe the reaction and position of people towards the emotions of other people and their extent in the willingness to help.
* Body
* According to Burton (2015), empathy is the ability to recognize and share the emotions of other people, fictional characters, or sentient beings.
* It involves a process of first seeing the people from their perspective and then sharing their reaction. The emotions entail all aspects, including distress (Burton, 2015).
* Sharing peoples' information can prove tedious, and the person portraying empathy must first imagine their lives in the position of the people demanding the act of empathy to understand them clearly, their current situations, and what they will do to get out of the identified issue (Burton, 2015). The tactic is also beneficial in the identification of a problem facing a particular society. Hence, a person has to interact with at least one member of the community and get into their position to finally understand the issues affecting the entire society (Burton, 2015).
* In the identification of different feelings from different people towards the same person, most people tend to confuse empathy with pity, compassion, and sympathy. However, distinctions reveal mixed feelings. First, pity is the feeling of discomfort upon the realization of the distress of one or a group of sentient beings. Then feelings can change...