Empathy

Encyclopedia of Terminology for CA and IL: Empathy
Author(s):	Johanna Ruusuvuori (Tampere University, Finland) (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4802-0081)
To cite:	Ruusuvuori, Johanna. (2024). Empathy. In Alexandra Gubina, Elliott M. Hoey & Chase Wesley Raymond (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Terminology for Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics. International Society for Conversation Analysis (ISCA). DOI: [ ]

Empathy refers to an interactional process where someone displays understanding of and affective affiliation with another person’s emotional experience, while orienting to that person’s ownership of that experience. It has been defined as a way of receiving the other’s intensive first-hand experience with an obligation “to affirm the nature of the experience and its meaning, and to affiliate with the stance of the experiencer towards them” (Heritage 2011: 160; see also Kuroshima & Iwata 2016: 93), or “displaying understanding of the other person’s emotional situation, while orienting to an asymmetry regarding their experiential rights and/or emotive involvement” (Kupetz 2014: 7).

The origin of the concept of empathy dates back to 19th century German esthetics where the term Einfühlung was used as referring to projection of self into a beautiful object (Wispé 1987). Since then, empathy has mostly been studied as an individual ability, a capacity for an empathic understanding of another person’s feelings and reactions. Within disciplines where the concept has been central for the activity studied, as in psychotherapy, a more processual approach has been taken, seeing empathy as an act of resonating with the other’s experiences (Barrett-Lennard 1981). Other terms that have been used to refer to similar phenomena include sympathy, role-taking, and adopting other’s viewpoint. As the term empathy, these have received varying definitions, depending on the discipline (philosophy, psychology, health sciences, sociology) or the context where they are studied (the essence or definition of the concept, the clinical practice of psychotherapy, primary care, or peer support) (see, e.g., Halpern 2003; Wispé 1987).

In conversation analysis, empathy is studied as an interactional phenomenon, as a process constructed by the participants of an encounter, a practice of doing empathy (Bucholz 2014). The focus is on the ways in which empathy is accomplished in interaction (Silverman/Peräkylä 1991). In this line of study, empathy has mostly been described in responsive position.

Three important dimensions of empathy are prominent in conversation analytic definitions of empathy: understanding, affect, and focus on the experience of the other. Empathetic understanding may be either shown or claimed (Sacks 1995, II: 252). Claiming understanding entails utterances such as “I understand” or “Oh dear”, but without reference to the actual nature of the trouble described (see, e.g., Weatherall & Keevallik 2016). Showing understanding involves grasping the gist of the prior turn for example by formulating it, as in “You must feel awful about that” or proposing additional details of the described situation (see, e.g., Ruusuvuori 2005, 2007). Both aspects of understanding can also be referred to as empathic displays, without making the distinction between showing and claiming (Kupetz 2014).

CA studies do not make claims about whether empathy demands actual affective involvement by the recipient (as in sharing a similar affective state of mind). Empathic responses can be treated as affective in the sense that they are seen as conveying affiliation with another person’s emotional display, and affiliation in this context can be seen as containing an affective aspect (on affiliation, see Sorjonen & Lindström 2013; Stivers 2008).

The third noteworthy aspect of empathy is that it focuses on the experience of the one to whom empathy is directed (Hepburn & Potter 2023). The question of epistemic and experiential rights – that is, who is considered to be the owner of the experience in question – is considered central. Thus, in doing empathy, participants are seen to orient to an asymmetry in their experiential rights (Kupetz 2014). This means that empathic responses entail having to show affiliation without necessarily having access to an identical experience. This aspect is taken carefully into account in both everyday conversation between friends and acquaintances as well as in institutional encounters. In institutional encounters the repertoire of empathetic responses is further limited by the orientations to the institutional roles. In service encounters in particular, responses such as second stories on professionals’ own equivalent experiences, which may be seen as conveying empathy in mundane conversation, are treated as not relevant (Jefferson & Lee 1992; Ruusuvuori 2005, 2007). Furthermore, patients’ pain cries in the context of physical examination at the medical consultation are not treated as making empathy relevant. Rather, pain cries in this context are treated by both participants as ways to locate the problem source in diagnosing the patient (Heath 1989; McArthur 2018; Weatherall et al. 2021).

All three aspects of empathy – understanding, affect, and orientation to the other’s rights of owning experience – are observable in the following example (1) from mundane conversation. What is also noteworthy, is that these aspects are constantly renegotiated in the process of doing empathy (Kupetz 2014; Herlin & Visapää 2016). The example depicts a phone call between two sisters, Kerry and Jill. During the call, it has been revealed that Jill’s husband has left her some time ago and that Jill is still suffering:

(1) (Ford & Hepburn 2021: 198)

01  KER:    .TCH=°Haw:h dear.°
02  JIL:    °>Huh huh huh hu[h<°]
03  KER: ->                 [ I ]t’s frustrating         
04  KER: -> [isn’it.  ]=too[:. Because noth]ing happens:.
05  JIL:    [°huh huh°]    [ M m : : : : . ]
06          (.)
07  JIL:    °U- Yea:h.
08  KER: -> .Shh (0.2) uHHHhh an ye just kinda left in   
09       -> limbo.=really,=aren’t you.                   
10  JIL:    u- ~Y::↑ep 
11          (0.3) 

In the example, Kerry responds to Jill’s emotional display (she is sobbing at line 2) with an empathic turn at lines 3–4 and 8–9. Kerry formulates Jill’s emotional state (due to her husband having left her) as frustrating (line 3) and gives further details of Jill’s proposed situation (lines 4, 8, and 9), showing understanding in regards Jill’s situation. Furthermore, Kerry attends to Jill’s primary epistemic rights to her feelings with the tag questions (lines 4 and 9), which make relevant Jill’s confirmation (lines 7 and 10) of Kerry’s proposal. With her confirmations (lines 7 and 10) Jill accepts (though minimally) Kerry’s proposals for potential ways in which Jill may be feeling.

Even within CA studies, the terms adopted to describe the phenomenon covered by the above definitions of empathy may vary. While studying responses to displays of trouble, discomfort or indignation, where empathic responses are relevant, researchers may refer to affiliative responses (Couper-Kühlen 2012) or just responses to emotional displays (Merlino 2021; Voutilainen 2012) instead of empathic responses. The concept of empathy is often used in studies of therapeutic encounters or encounters where empathy is particularly important for the ongoing institutional task. However, even within similar contexts, empathy may receive different definitions, varying from more to less inclusive. Within the more inclusive end of the continuum is, for example, Wynn and Wynn’s (2006) definition from psychotherapeutic interaction. They discern cognitive, affective and sharing kinds of empathy referring to understanding the other, feeling for the other, and identifying with the other’s experience respectively. Hepburn and Ford (2021), on the other hand, define empathy quite strictly, based on four different empathy intensive contexts: mundane conversation, helplines, palliative care and psychotherapy. They show how in these contexts, empathy can be defined as utterances which “make a claim about another person’s mental or emotional state that is contingent on that person’s confirmation” (Ford & Hepburn 2021: 189).

Despite these different definitions, the common approach to empathy in CA entails observing members’ ways of receiving other’s emotional expressions with displays of understanding, affective affiliation and orientation to the other’s experiential rights.

Additional Related Entries:

• Affect
• Affiliation
• Alignment
• Display of empathy
• Emotion
• Empathy
• Intersubjectivity
• Stance

Cited References:

Barrett-Lennard, G.T. (1981). The Empathy Cycle: Refinement of a Nuclear Concept. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 28(2), 91–100.

Bucholz, M.B. (2014). Patterns of empathy as embodied practice in clinical conversation: A musical dimension. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, Article 349.

Couper-Kühlen, E. (2012). Exploring affiliation in the reception of conversational complaint stories. In: A. Peräkylä, A. & M-L. Sorjonen (Eds.), Emotion in Interaction (pp. 113–146). Oxford University Press.

Ford, J., & Hepburn, A. (2021). Responding empathically from shifting epistemic terrains. In J.S. Robles & A. Weatherall (Eds.), How Emotions are Made in Talk (pp. 189–210). John Benjamins.

Halpern, J. (2003). What is Clinical Empathy? Journal of General Internal Medicine, 18, 670–674.

Heath, Christian. 1989. Pain Talk: The Expression of suffering in the Medical Consultation. Social Psychology Quarterly, (52)2, 113–125.

Hepburn, A. & Potter, J. (2023). Understanding mixed emotions in organized helping through emotionography. Frontiers in Psychology, 14.

Herlin, I., & Visapää, L. (2016). Dimensions of empathy in relation to language. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 39(2), 135–157.

Heritage, J. (2011). Territories of knowledge, territories of experience: empathic moments in interaction. In T. Stivers, L. Mondada & J. Steensig (Eds.), The Morality of Knowledge in Conversation (pp. 159–183). Cambridge University Press.

Jefferson, G., & Lee, J. (1992). The Rejection of Advice: Managing the Problematic Convergence of a ‘Troubles-Telling’ and a ‘Service Encounter.’. In: P. Drew & J. Heritage (Eds.), Talk at Work (pp. 521–548). Cambridge University Press.

Kupetz, M. (2014). Empathy displays as interactional achievements – Multimodal and sequential aspects. Journal of Pragmatics, 61, 4–34.

Kuroshima, S & Iwata, N. 2016. On displaying empathy: Dilemma, category, and experience. Research on Language and Social Interaction 49(2), 92–110.

McArthur, A. (2018). Getting pain on the table in primary care physical exams. Social Science & Medicine, 200, 190–198.

Merlino, S. (2021). Haptics and emotions in speech and language therapy sessions for people with post-stroke aphasia. In: J.S. Robles & A. Weatherall (Eds.), How Emotions are Made in Talk (pp. 233–262). John Benjamins.

Peräkylä, A., & Silverman, D. (1990). Owning Experience: Describing the Experience of Other Persons. Text, 11, 441–480.

Pudlinski, C. (2005) Doing empathy and sympathy: caring responses to troubles tellings on a peer support line. Discourse Studies, 7(3), 267–288.

Ruusuvuori , J. (2005). "Empathy" and "Sympathy" in Action: Attending to Patients' Troubles in Finnish Homeopathic and General Practice Consultations. Social Psychology Quarterly, 68(3), 204–222.

Ruusuvuori, J. (2007). Managing affect: intergration of empathy and problem-soilving in health care encounters. Discourse Studies, 9(5), 597–622.

Sacks, H. (1995). Lectures on Conversation. Vol II. Blackwell.

Sorjonen, M-L., & Lindström, A. (2013). Affiliation in Conversation. In J. Sidnell & T. Stivers (Eds.), The Handbook of Conversation Analysis (pp. 350–369). Wiley-Blackwell.

Stivers, T. (2008). Stance, Alignment, and Affiliation During Storytelling: When Nodding is a Token of Affiliation. Research on Language & Social Interaction, 41(1), 31–57

Weatherall, A., & Keevallik, L. (2016). When Claims of Understanding are Less than Affiliative. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 49(3), 167–182.

Weatherall, A., Keevallik, L., La, J., Dowell, T., & Stubbe, M. (2021). The multimodality and temporality of pain displays. Language & Communication (80)5, 56–70.

Wispé, L. (1987). History of the concept of empathy. In N. Eisenberg & J. Strayer (Eds.), Empathy and its Development (pp. 17–37). Cambridge University Press

Wynn, R., & Wynn, M. (2006). Empathy as an interactionally achieved phenomenon in psychotherapy. Characteristics of some conversational resources. Journal of Pragmatics, 38, 1385–1397.

Voutilainen, L. (2012). Responding to Emotion in Cognitive Psychotherapy. In A. Peräkylä, A. & M-L. Sorjonen (Eds.), Emotion in Interaction (pp. 235–255). Oxford University Press.

Additional References: