Are We Still Empathic if We Don't Take Action?

Numerous controlled experiments have demonstrated that empathy leads people to take actions on behalf of others and to do so without personal gain or even at a cost.

Empathy also helps us to cooperate with others. We use empathy as a tool to read other people, which helps us to exchange information in helpful ways, and as a result, productively live in social groups. While there are other reasons that people might do prosocial things (maybe guilt or desire for recognition) empathy has consistently correlated with positive actions.

We often think of empathy as the evidence of doing good, and yes, the two are related. But they are not the same. Empathy is not an outcome; rather it is an emotive experience that can inform what we do next. The action we might take as a result of empathy is often to be helpful, caring, cooperative, and compassionate, but that is the result of a separate decision.

There may be times that we have an empathic experience and take action, and there may be times that we do not do anything. Or, we may choose to respond in a way that may not seem to others to look particularly active.

The reason that empathy is so important, even if there is no observable action taken, is because we are heard and our feelings are validated. When we feel heard and understood, we feel connected to others in ways that promote positive social interactions

When sharing emotions and experiences, we may want to fix situations or tell others what to do, but that is not the most empathic way to respond.

Empathy helps you to communicate to others that they are being heard and understood. Using the key empathy skills of setting boundaries and engaging in emotion regulation, we can pause to recognize our own emotions and not get overwhelmed by those emotions. This pause allows us to act in ways that are beneficial to the other; not act in ways that we imagine would fit or do what we would want.