Empathy involves sharing the other person's emotions creating the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Developing empathy is crucial for establishing relationships and behaving compassionately. It is a soft skill enabling someone to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people.

These are cognitive, emotional, and compassionate empathy, and this page explains what each type of heart means.

It also explains how and why it is possible to demonstrate one or more of the three types of empathy yet still come across as uncaring.