What Is Cognitive Empathy?

There are two kinds of empathy -- affective and cognitive. According to psychologist Deborah Serani, affective empathy is the ability to sense what another person is feeling while cognitive empathy is the ability to sense what they are thinking. Affective empathy is controlled by lower brain functions while cognitive empathy is regulated by higher brain functions. People with certain psychological and brain disorders lack cognitive empathy, although they are able to experience emotional empathy.

Significance of Empathy

• The ability to sense what others are thinking and feeling is what differentiates humans from other animals. Watching a sad movie, for example, triggers a primitive human response, allowing you to connect emotionally with the characters. Most people can also connect with others cognitively, adopting their perspective even though they may not share these opinions. Although people may possess the ability to be empathetic, criminals selectively disconnect from these feelings to justify victimizing others.

Biology of Empathy

• A research team led by Simone Shamay-Tsoory in 2009 found that lower brain areas regulate affective empathy while higher brain areas regulate cognitive empathy. The team compared people with ventromedial prefrontal damage to those with inferior frontal gyrus damage and a group of controls with no brain damage. All groups were given questionnaires measuring empathy. Those with ventromedial damage showed deficits in cognitive empathy but not affective empathy when compared to controls while those with inferior frontal damage had deficits in affective empathy but not cognitive empathy.

People Without Empathy

• People who suffer from schizophrenia or autism-spectrum disorders lack cognitive empathy, although they have emotional empathy. When asked to view emotionally charged photographs, people with these disorders tend to have an emotional reaction, although they cannot speculate what the person in the picture may be thinking. These organic deficits impair social interaction and lead to people with these disorders feeling disconnected from others.

Enhancing Cognitive Empathy

• Because people without brain damage or mental illness can selectively use their empathy skills, those skills can be enhanced through practice. Asking yourself what another person may be thinking when you find yourself emotionally connecting with them can build cognitive empathy. Criminals undergoing therapy are asked to build empathy skills by writing apology letters to their victims to connect with the fact that their crimes hurt others emotionally as well as physically.