First, I get if my blog title confused you. Many people think you either have empathy or you don’t. Or that if you have empathy that level of empathy remains static over the course of a life. The reality is that empathy can be developed or atrophied.
There’s another misconception about empathy. Most people, especially in Western culture, believe empathy is only emotive. That’s called “Affective Empathy.” There’s a second form of empathy called, “Cognitive Empathy,” which I’ll go over in a moment. To become more well-rounded with your empathetic skills, it’ll be important to possess both Affective and Cognitive Empathy.
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