Compassion vs. Pity vs. Sympathy

[Gaze]

What's the diff? Do you think we often get them confused? Are they beneficial to emotional problem solving? How can we prevent them from being abused, overused, or misused?

 

[sassafras]

Awesome thread topic, @Gist.

The more I think about it, I actually think it's differentiated by a few nuances.

Pity has an element of compassion, in that it is feeling bad for someone or the situation, but also being relieved that you're not in the situation yourself. It's not about the other person. It's about you. There's a smug element to it. Like, 'awww that's too bad' but no desire to elevate or help the person out of their funk. It's very detached. It can be easily mistaken for sympathy or vice versa if you don't know what the person is thinking/feeling in the moment.

Sympathy is actually all about the other person and genuinely feeling bad for them, but not really taking the extra step to align with their feelings. It's strictly about the person. Often, there is a desire to help too. I think most often, sympathy offers some kind of insight into the situation or the expressed desire help dissolve the bad feelings/fix the situation, but it's more detached than empathy.

Empathy/compassion, on the other hand, is more active because you're trying to relate to the person and their feelings in the situation... hopefully in the interest of bringing out insights or something that can help just like sympathy. It makes the person feel less alone. However, sometimes it can backfire if you take a trip down your own memory lane and have it become about your feelings rather than the person's.

 

[CogentPursuit]

Cognitive Empathy - Rational Understanding of ones situation (Consciously driven Understanding)
Empathy - Feeling their Feels - Compassion (Intuitive understanding through emotional expression)
Empathetic Concern - Sympathy (Acting upon various forms of empathy)

Pity is how I feel toward you and how you fail to understand simple vocabulary words - > Arrogant + Emotionless Understanding

????? - How I would feel if I were in your situation (based on my own needs and values)
I don't feel sorry for you because I did just fine in your situation and did it the right way. -> difficulty sympathizing except in circumstances where you are of the same heart and mind.

????? - How I would feel if I were you (Considering and accepting a persons values and needs as important and basing the situation on those values and needs)
I am sorry you have to go through this I know this is hard for you and you are not used to dealing with this. -> Able to sympathize even if they themselves have not been in your situation before because they understand you well and can imagine how you would feel in that given situation.


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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathic_concern

 

[Sandie33]

What's the diff? Do you think we often get them confused? Are they beneficial to emotional problem solving? How can we prevent them from being abused, overused, or misused?

Compassion ][ Sympathy ][ Pity

What's the diff?
Compassion/empathy is engaging and relating to the others feeling in the moment.

Sympathy is wanting to extend hope without sounding pushy

Pity is feeling overwhelmed with sadness because the person does not or will not notice that they are experiencing an issue.

Do you think we often get them confused?
No. Not necessarily. Unless you, as the observer, invest too much by actually taking on what it is they are feeling.

Are they beneficial to emotional problem solving?
Most definitely! By noticing "what is mine and what is theirs" can teach us how to better process our own emotions and learn to separate them from feelings. Bc they are vastly different. Feelings are inevitable. Naming and claiming them during their occurance can help with emotional state's of mind. You'll be less likely to stay 'stuck' in emotions when you can recognize Your feelings and their effect and affect on you.

How can we prevent them from being abused, overused, or misused?
Practice, practice, practice.
Both are inevitable. Finding your triggers helps with maintaining your balance

@Gist , you always come up with good probes ;-)

 

[Trifoilum]

I think each are sort of evolution of the other.

You can feel pity without feeling compassion or sympathetic (derisively, for instance, or a 'thank goodness I'm not THEM').
You can feel sympathetic without feeling compassion (a sympathy from the mind, for instance; cases where you know rationally people will feel bad about certain things)
Compassion I think involves both pity and sympathy, as well as other traits.

 

[Gaze]

Pity feels like a detached sense of intellectual acknowledgement that something bad happened to someone but requires or feels no emotional connection or attachment. e.g. So sad that her car was totalled. That sucks, so did you see the game last night?

Sympathy sounds like there's a heartfelt "we're grieving with you" for this loss or difficulty, even if we haven't been through it ourselves. We can only imagine. We're here with you in spirit.

With compassion, there seems to be a genuine feeling for the other person, an almost bone deep sense as if you ache for them, because of what they're going through. You can almost feel their pain, and if you have empathy, maybe you do. You feel compelled to do something, to help, to save the world, because you can't just walk away, or you know what it's like to be in a similar position, and so you can't help feeling with them.

 

[Night Owl]

Some great stuff has been said.

On one level it's a matter of semantics - namely with sympathy and pity, and empathy and compassion, as one can define them distinctly, or lump them together, applying different meanings to such terms. I tend to view sympathy and pity as the same thing; empathy as another, and compassion as yet another thing. I'll pull a lazy and chuck in an expanded/edited post from months back.

To be sympathetic: Is to feel sympathy (pity/sorry) for someone. It's a feeling arising from recognising the hardship/plight of someone.

To be empathetic: Is to feel the other persons feelings and/or is the act of rationally putting oneself in the shoes of another. Empathy builds on top of sympathy and is deeper.

To be compassionate: Is not a feeling, but a moral quality that involves an intention to sincerely help another, and is realised by the acting out of this intention if possible.

Sympathy and empathy in this view belong to the realm of emotion and intellect; whilst compassion to the realm of volition and behaviour (whilst also likely including an emotional and intellectual component). Compassion is thus the realm of choice and action, whilst sympathy and empathy are simply emotional responses distinct from compassion, and either accompanying it, preceding it, or apart from it - depending on how one choose to act based on these feelings. The feelings of sympathy, but especially empathy can help one to be compassionate. Yet feelings of sympathy and empathy, and the ability of being sympathetic and empathetic, by no means make one a 'good person'. For one can feel another persons feelings, but not want to feel them, nor want to help the person whose feelings they're feeling.

In my personal view I think popular thought confuses empathy and the ability to empathise with compassion. The former which doesn't necessary make one a nice and kind person, but the latter (compassion) which does. Just as having $100 doesn't even define a moral quality about a person, but if one was to choose to give it away to a friend in need, then this $100 (like empathy) becomes a tool for being compassionate/kind.
​

Thus from my end discussing how one has the ability to emphasise doesn't equate with 'being good', 'better' or 'special' - simply that being more empathetic can more readily dispose one to 'be good' or 'act good' in compassion. Maybe sympathy and empathy can be overused and abused - or rather, the capacity to feel in such a manner is depleted despite a willingness to feel them. Yet compassion - the choice to love, and care, no matter how one feels on some level - I don't think that should ever be negated. It's true, emotional distancing, resisting being abused, and saying no has it's place and is necessary, but I don't think compassion has to ever be cast away even in these circumstances. It's a choice to understand, not to judge or condemn, to forgive, and to care for another's well being, no matter what one feels - from anger, indifference, to elation. Eventually the emotions catch up to our choices - well, usually, at least to some degree.

 

[Littlelissa]

Sympathy involves looking down on someone, to some extent at least, whereas in compassion your on the same level as them and in the same shoes so to speak. That's what I think anyway. Subtle difference.

 

[Enkidu]

Sympathy and empathy in this view belong to the realm of emotion and intellect; whilst compassion to the realm of volition and behaviour (whilst also likely including an emotional and intellectual component). Compassion is thus the realm of choice and action, whilst sympathy and empathy are simply emotional responses distinct from compassion, and either accompanying it, preceding it, or apart from it - depending on how one choose to act based on these feelings. The feelings of sympathy, but especially empathy can help one to be compassionate. Yet feelings of sympathy and empathy, and the ability of being sympathetic and empathetic, by no means make one a 'good person'. For one can feel another persons feelings, but not want to feel them, nor want to help the person whose feelings they're feeling.

Wonderful summary. I think pity, sympathy, and compassion in meaning are blended in modern usage, particularly pity versus compassion. From my understanding, sympathy is a more generalized concept of 'togetherness' i.e sympathy, symphony, symposium, symptom that has its linguistic roots in the public sphere, but over time morphed into something much the same as the Christian notion of compassion, or empathy. I don't believe that the (now) secularized concept of Christian (or Muslim) compassion is the same as Buddhist compassion - though the two overlap and are applied interchangeably in popular usage. Buddhist compassion is selfless karmic charity for the illusion of suffering, while Christian compassion is maternal, or what Kierkegaard calls the "finite side of suffering." Combined and without cultural context, you get altruism. Pity on the other hand, strikes me as an action word (consider the separate meanings of pitiful and pitiless) and at least superficially resembles Buddhist compassion in that it's behavior in response to suffering.
You can see mob feeling quickly turn to compassion and then the duty of pity in this Cool Hand Luke scene:

 

[CindyLou]

Pity is always something I've used and associated with anger. I choose to view them with distain so I won't hate them or try to get revenge on them. It's like a beginning step towards forgiveness for someone that doesn't really deserve it.

Otherwise I don't ever really pity anyone without anger - I don't think. I would feel compassion, sympathize with them or feel/do nothing at all.