Neurodivergent here. Would you be willing to explain the differences between sympathy / empathy vs Kindness / Compassion? Or maybe have any good resources to use for this explanation?
I want to understand properly so I dont mistake them, and internet resources are giving me conflicting information.
Sure! This topic is very important to me.
Empathy - feeling what you perceive other people feel. For example, if you see someone feeling sad, you feel sad yourself. If you see someone happy, you feel happy too. Example: A stranger you don't know is excited about being accepted into college. You feel excitement in yourself, as if you yourself were accepted into college.
Sympathy - feeling upset for someone, even if you do not empathize. For example, you see someone crying over the loss of their pet. You feel sad for them, but you don't feel like you are experiencing *their sadness* - with empathy, you'd feel like you lost your pet too. With sympathy, you just feel sorry that they did.
Kindness - a choice of behaviors. You may feel no empathy, no sympathy, you may not even like the individual, but you choose to do good things because its the right thing to do.
Compassion - acts of kindness done with sympathetic consciousness. Sympathetic consciousness isn't the same as sympathetic *emotion* - you may not actually feel sympathy on an emotional level, but you are aware that you "should" feel sorry for them, so you do something kind or comforting.
There's one example on reddit that I found of someone explaining how empathy can be used to harm, and I think its pretty important. Empathy is a neutral emotion that only really does good when paired with kind choices. It may motivate someone to be kind, or it may motivate someone to be dismissive and avoidant - empathy itself is not a good indicator of morals.
I will add, though, that this person is speaking as if compassion and kindness are interchangeable, when they are not. So let me add some new examples.
High empathy, low kindness, low compassion: Your friend's hamster just died. Over messages, you don't really grasp that they're upset. Once they call you, though, and you hear their distressed voice, you realize they are distressed, and are overwhelmed with empathy, feeling as though it was *your* pet you lost. You hang up the call and ignore them - it's too much of a hassle to deal with that kind of emotional distress right now, they can go find somewhere else to deal with it.
(See how the person didn't have the compassionate understanding that the person was upset from the get-go? When they *did* realize they were upset, the empathy overwhelmed them, and they *chose* to be unkind by ghosting their friend instead of communicating that it is too overwhelming for them right now.)
High kindness, low empathy, low compassion: Your friend's hamster died. Over messages, you don't really get that you're supposed to be feeling sorry for them, so you don't say or do anything comforting. Its only when they call you crying that you realize they are upset, and grab some food to talk it out with them.
(See how the person didn't have the compassionate understanding that the person was upset from the get-go? But when they *did* realize they were upset, they *chose* to do something kind, despite feeling no compassion or empathy about it.)
Low compassion, high kindness, high empathy example: Your friends hamster died. Over messages, you don't really get that you're supposed to be feeling sorry for them, so you don't say or do anything comforting. When they call you crying, though, you are hit with a wave of distress at the sounds of their cries, and feel as though you lost the hamster yourself. You decide to go over to their house to comfort them, sobbing all the while - or, if its too much for you, you gently inform them that you'll be ordering them doordash, but that you're too overwhelmed to go over to them yourself right now.
(See how the person didn't realize they were upset at first, because they don't have compassion? But when they did realize, the empathy hit them all at once, and - unlike the first example - they *chose* to do something kind.)
