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Context Thinking
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Empathy and thinking styles

See Lexicon – Empathy for the general definition and forms of empathy.
Empathy as overlap between two different perspectives
Empathy arises in the overlap between two different experiential worlds — it requires both the ability and the willingness to step into the other's perspective.

See Lexicon – Empathy for the general definition and forms of empathy.

Three types of empathy

Science classically distinguishes three forms of empathy:

Contextual empathy

There is a fourth element that we call contextual empathy here. It is not a separate fourth type, but a regulator: it determines whether the three classical forms are deployed appropriately at the right moment.

Cognitively understanding that someone is crying is different from sensing that silence now means more than comforting. Melloni, Lopez, and Ibanez (2014) therefore describe empathy as a process strongly guided by context.2 Heyers and colleagues (2025) provided recent empirical support for this: empathy demonstrably varies with context.3

This distinction is also reflected in the brain. Affective empathy relies on the insula and mid-cingulate cortex (core of the salience network). Cognitive empathy relies on other regions involved in inner representation.4 Contextual empathy thus connects directly to the network that determines which signal matters right now.

"Contextual empathy" is not yet an established scientific term. We present it as a conceptual tool that connects with existing findings, not as an established category.

Low-contextual thinking

High-contextual thinking

Empathy and exhaustion in care professions

It is tempting to think that more empathy is always better. That is not straightforwardly true. Holas and colleagues (2024) studied Polish care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.5 In that study, warm concern was not protective — it was even associated with more exhaustion. Personal distress in particular proved strongly linked to burnout.

Zhou (2025) confirms, based on a broader literature, that the relationship between empathy and burnout is not linear.6 It depends on the type of empathy. "More is better" therefore does not apply here.

Empathy and psychopathology

In clinical practice, empathy profiles are sometimes described for certain disorders. These are working hypotheses and heuristics, not established empirical profiles:

For a more careful discussion, see personality disorders.

The double empathy problem

Damian Milton (2012) formulated the double empathy problem: the empathic mismatch between autistic and non-autistic people works both ways.7 It is therefore not a one-sided autistic deficit. The concept has become popular in the autism community.

Caution is warranted, however. Livingston, Hargitai, and Shah (2025) analyzed the scientific basis and conclude that the concept rests on a notably weak chain of reasoning and is often confused with other concepts.8 We therefore mention the idea, but advise against basing policy or clinical decisions on it until the evidence is stronger.

Case

Partner A (high-contextual) notices that Partner B is tired and decides to arrange dinner on their own. Partner B (low-contextual) interprets this as: "he doesn't want to eat together" and feels rejected. The difference in empathy style leads to a misunderstanding, while the intention was caring.

Finally, a measurement note: questionnaires for empathy do not all measure the same thing. de Lima and Osório (2021) found that different instruments agree only moderately with each other.9 An empathy score therefore also depends on the instrument used.

References

  1. Singer, T., & Klimecki, O. M. (2014). Empathy and compassion. Current Biology, 24(18), R875–R878. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2014.06.054
  2. Melloni, M., Lopez, V., & Ibanez, A. (2014). Empathy and contextual social cognition. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 14(1), 407–425. doi:10.3758/s13415-013-0205-3
  3. Heyers, K., Schrödter, R., Pfeifer, L. S., Ocklenburg, S., Güntürkün, O., & Stockhorst, U. (2025). (State) empathy: how context matters. Frontiers in Psychology, 16, 1525517. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1525517 — PubMed 40040661
  4. Arioli, M., & Canessa, N. (2019). Neural processing of social interaction: Coordinate-based meta-analytic evidence from human neuroimaging studies. Human Brain Mapping, 40(13), 3712–3737. doi:10.1002/hbm.24627
  5. Holas, P., Gambin, M., Wojtkowiak, N., Kmita, G., & Łojek, E. (2024). Relationship of burnout with empathy dimensions in healthcare workers in Poland during the COVID-19 pandemic. Health Psychology Report, 13(2), 156–169. doi:10.5114/hpr/188097 — PubMed 40487480
  6. Zhou, H. (2025). Relationship between empathy and burnout as well as potential affecting and mediating factors from the perspective of clinical nurses: a systematic review. BMC Nursing, 24(1), 38. doi:10.1186/s12912-025-02701-0 — PubMed 39794782
  7. Milton, D. E. M. (2012). On the ontological status of autism: the 'double empathy problem'. Disability & Society, 27(6), 883–887. doi:10.1080/09687599.2012.710008
  8. Livingston, L. A., Hargitai, L. D., & Shah, P. (2025). The double empathy problem: A derivation chain analysis and cautionary note. Psychological Review, 132(3), 744–757. doi:10.1037/rev0000468 — PubMed 38829337
  9. de Lima, F. F., & Osório, F. de L. (2021). Empathy: Assessment Instruments and Psychometric Quality — A Systematic Review With Meta-Analysis. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 781346. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.781346 — PubMed 34899531