Communication Research

  Here is an exercise for stimulating class discussion of empathy that I wrote for the conversation chapter in the next edition of Human Communication. But, I thought it might be of interest more generally. Conversational Empathy Empathy is a quality of interpersonal communication that involves feeling what another person feels from that person�s point of view without losing your own identity. Empathy enables you to understand emotionally what another person is experiencing. To sympathize, in contrast, is to feel for the person�to feel sorry or happy for the person, for example. Although empathy is one of the most important qualities of interpersonal communication, expressing it is not always easy. This exercise is designed to help you identify some of the responses that are not empathic and the reasons they fail to express this essential interpersonal connection. Here are ten possible responses to the �simple� statement, �I guess I�m feeling a little depressed.� For this ...