Empathy is essential for satisfying relationships. Understanding the different types of empathy, building our empathy, and learning to relate to others can help us identify toxic dynamics, be effective communicators, and transform our relationships.
Types of Empathy: Their Function and Differences
Empathy has distinct forms: cognitive empathy and emotional empathy, each with unique benefits and hidden dangers. Different types of empathy reflect different skills and serve different functions. Recognizing these nuances can help you protect yourself and grow as individuals, partners, and leaders.
- Cognitive empathy is the intellectual ability to understand someone else’s perspective, thoughts, and motivations without necessarily sharing their feelings. It’s like mentally “stepping into their shoes” to see how they think. Its function is perspective-taking, facilitating communication, problem-solving, and negotiation..
- Emotional empathy is the ability to actually feel or resonate with another person’s emotional state—experiencing their joy, pain, or sorrow as if it were your own. It serves the function of attunement and fosters emotional bonds, compassion, and care.
- Instrumental empathy—also called strategic or tactical empathy—is the ability to understand another person’s thoughts and emotions, not to connect or support them, but to charm, deceive, manipulate, influence, or control them.
Whether in professional or personal settings, having both cognitive and emotional empathy promotes better outcomes by making others feel seen, safe, and supported. It facilitates mutual understanding, authenticity, reciprocity, and constructive action and responses to others’ emotions. It deepens intimacy, de-escalates tension and conflict, and builds trust, stronger friendships, and long-term relationship satisfaction. Parenting with both forms of empathy nurtures emotionally secure children.
In the workplace, leaders who have combined forms of empathy inspire loyalty and create psychologically safe environments, which improve team morale, client retention, and collaboration.
The Dangers of Empathy Imbalance
We may have cognitive empathy without emotional empathy, or the reverse, emotional empathy without cognitive empathy. We may lack self-compassion and have no empathy for ourselves.
When Cognitive Empathy Lacks Emotional Empathy
The most well-known danger is when high cognitive empathy coexists with low emotional empathy. We can skillfully read others’ thoughts and feelings, but fail to provide real support, causing alienation and a lack of genuine concern.
Look for these signs of lack of empathy. In families or romantic relationships, it may result in emotional neglect or manipulation. In organizations, this can create toxic cultures of control, distrust, low morale, and fear.
Research shows that cognitive empathy among narcissists and sociopaths is average, but they’re significantly below average in emotional empathy. Many individuals with narcissism, Machiavellianism, or psychopathy (the “Dark Triad”), who score high in cognitive empathy but low in emotional empathy, use their understanding of others for selfish or harmful ends. They often appear charming, intuitive, and socially skilled, making them harder to detect. People with this “dangerous empathy” often use instrumental empathy to manipulate others without remorse. For example: Grandiose narcissists are charming, flattering, and emotionally cold underneath. Vulnerable narcissists also lack emotional empathy and manipulate with sulking, guilt tripping, blame-shifting, self-pity, or threats of self-harm. Machiavellians are calculating, manipulative planners. Psychopaths may fake or mimic empathy for personal gain.
A key sign of instrumental empathy is inconsistency: warmth or concern that seems highly situational and disappears when there’s nothing to gain, or flips to coldness when challenged. Other red flags include patterned flattery, emotional mirroring that feels fake and too accurate, and a tendency to steer conversations toward their advantage. Unlike genuine empathy, instrumental empathy lacks sincerity; over time, the recipient can feel exploited or drained.
When Emotional Empathy Lacks Cognitive Empathy or Self-Compassion
There are also dangers if we are high in emotional empathy but low in cognitive empathy. This may happen if our parents shamed or ignored our feelings, so we have difficulty identifying them. It’s difficult to negotiate and understand the other person’s point of view. Rather than find constructive outcomes, we may capitulate, become overwhelmed, or sacrifice ourselves emotionally. An example is someone who is neurodiverse. They can easily feel overwhelmed or confused, because while they deeply feel emotions. They find it hard to know why or how to respond.
Typically, a lack of boundaries is a core issue because we deeply feel others’ emotions, yet struggle to understand intentions, spot manipulation, or clearly assert our needs. We often:
- Absorb others’ feelings as our own, making it hard to separate ourselves emotionally.
- Have difficulty identifying and asking for our needs and wants.
- Prioritize others’ comfort or needs over our well-being to avoid conflict or hurting feelings.
- Struggle to recognize when behavior is exploitative or abusive, because we lack the perspective to see it objectively.
- Find it difficult to say no or enforce limits, leading to emotional exhaustion and vulnerability.
This is worse if our emotional empathy is combined with low self-compassion. Without empathy for ourselves, emotional empathy for others can lead to burnout, enabling unhealthy dynamics, and loss of personal boundaries. Many codependents are empaths. They deeply feel others’ pain but may neglect their own needs. They feel responsible for other people’s feelings and prioritize others’ feelings and needs over their own well-being. They risk becoming overwhelmed or drained and enabling exploitative behavior or abuse.
Frequently, codependents are partners or children of narcissists or addicts, and sacrifice themselves emotionally to maintain peace or care for toxic individuals. Learning to set boundaries is crucial to maintain a clear sense of self, to separate and differentiate our emotions from those of other people, and to protect ourselves. We must learn to recognize when relationships are unhealthy or one-sided and assert our needs without guilt or fear of emotional fallout.
Empathy Dysfunction in Other Personalities
Dysfunctional empathy is also seen in other conditions, including borderline, histrionic, antisocial, and schizotypal personality disorders, as well as in autism spectrum disorder, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. Problems are often attributed to a mix of low empathy, over-reactivity, emotional exaggeration or dysregulation, distorted perception, and unstable interpersonal processing, which can make empathy feel unreliable or unsafe for others. While the nature of the dysfunction varies, the result is often a mismatch between how empathy is expressed, experienced, or understood, leading to interpersonal strain, miscommunication, and confusion in relationships.
Communication Patterns and Empathy
Responses by people with different types of empathy
For example, if you share your distress about an upcoming surgery:
- Someone with only cognitive empathy understands facts, not feelings. They may seem cold or impersonal: “That’s tough. You’ll probably be out a few weeks, right?” or, “Let me know how I can help.”
A narcissist might say the same, but without true feeling. They might appear caring in order to manipulate you or be dismissive or self-centered and turn the focus back on themselves: “You’re (overreacting, dramatic) too sensitive. I had surgery once and didn’t make a big deal out of it.” This shows cognitive empathy (they know you’re hurt), but no emotional resonance (they don’t care).
- Someone with only emotional empathy might feel overwhelmed, gasp, or cry, but be unsure of how to be helpful. They may empathize: “Oh no, that must feel awful! I don’t know what to say…” or ask, “Why do you feel that way?”
- Someone with combined empathy connects emotionally and offers real support: “That’s awful news. I’m so sorry. What can I do to help?”
Someone with no empathy may completely miss the emotional cue and ask, “That sucks. What’s for dinner?” not out of cruelty, but because the emotional signal doesn’t land.
Responses to People with Different Types of Empathy
Knowing how to respond can help us communicate effectively to avoid unrealistic expectations and arguments and get our needs met.
Someone with only cognitive empathy: To communicate with someone high in cognitive empathy but low in emotional empathy, make action-oriented statements. With narcissists who lack emotional empathy, you should focus on clear, practical requests and mutual benefits rather than emotional sharing. It avoids vulnerability by emphasizing how their cooperation leads to smoother outcomes or enhances their image. Frame requests around practical benefits or mutual gain. Setting firm, calm boundaries and appealing to self-interest or efficiency reduces conflict and increases the chance of getting your needs met without triggering defensiveness.
Instead of: “I’m feeling hurt because you don’t listen to me.”
Try: “When you help out with dinner, it makes things run smoother. The children and I appreciate you and respect you as a role model. I notice the house stays cleaner. Can you take that on this week?”
Someone with only emotional empathy: When communicating with someone high in emotional empathy but low in cognitive empathy, focus on expressing feelings clearly with descriptions that resonate with them. Don’t expect them to understand you. They may deeply feel your emotions but struggle to understand your perspective or practical needs. Providing concrete requests they can act on helps them respond supportively without confusion.
Instead of: “I need you to understand why I’m feeling overwhelmed so you can help me.”
Try: “I’m feeling really overwhelmed and anxious right now. It’s like a heavy weight on my chest, and I just need a bit of quiet time to calm down. Could you help by keeping things low-key for a while?”
Build Healthy Empathy—Starting with Yourself
True empathy development begins with self-awareness and self-compassion. If you don’t understand or care for your own emotions, you’ll struggle to connect authentically and protect your boundaries.
Exercises to Build Cognitive Empathy
- Perspective-Taking: Imagine another person’s viewpoint and motivations regularly.
- Active listening: Fully engage with others’ words and summarize to confirm understanding.
- Reading literary fiction: This helps develop the ability to understand complex emotional and cognitive states.
Exercises to Build Emotional Empathy
- Name motions: Identify your emotions and those of others to deepen the connection.
- Observe nonverbal cues: Pay attention to body language and tone.
- Practice a self-compassion meditation: A loving-kindness meditation extends kindness toward ourselves and others.
Cultivate Self-Compassion
- Practice mindfulness to recognize your feelings without judgment.
- Use kind self-talk to counteract self-criticism. Follow the steps in How to Raise Your Self-Esteem.
- Practice assertiveness and setting healthy boundaries outlined in How to Be Assertive.
- Overcome underlying shame: Do the exercises in Conquering Shame and Codependency: 8 Steps to Freeing the True You.
If you want to explore your empathy balance, here is a free test developed by researchers at UC Berkeley, called the Greater Good Science Center’s Empathy.
© 2025 Darlene Lancer