When research asks us to engage with experiences of trauma, exploitation, or harm, understanding where empathy ends and sympathy begins becomes an important part of navigating the emotional demands of research. This question is particularly relevant as research has increasingly moved away from treating participants as passive subjects to recognising them as active contributors to the research process (Denzin and Lincoln, 2005a). However, developing a more collaborative and emotionally engaged relationship with participants also requires researchers to consider how they respond to the experiences that are shared with them. Although empathy and sympathy are often used interchangeably, they represent distinct ways of relating to and understanding another person’s experience (Wispé, 1986; Gerdes, 2011). Understanding this distinction is therefore an important starting point for considering how researchers can remain emotionally engaged with participants while maintaining appropriate boundaries.

So, what do we actually mean when we talk about empathy and sympathy?

The terms sympathy and empathy have often been used interchangeably across all forms of literature, despite them describing two very distinct ways in which we process the emotions of others. Below are some definitions to help support the distinctions between the two terms:

Sympathy can be defined as “the quality or state of being affected by the condition of another with a feeling similar or corresponding to that of the other . . . fellow feeling” (Helle, 2006).

Empathy has been defined as the process “in which the behavioural, emotional, and cognitive signals of one participant are read and responded to by the other” (Peloquin, 2026).

For context, say your friend had come to you and said they had failed a recent exam: if you were to respond with sympathy, you may say something like “Oh no, I’m sorry. That’s such a shame. Don’t worry, you can do better next time” whereas if you empathised with the person, you might say “I can see why you’re so disappointed. You worked really hard, so it must be frustrating to get a result you weren’t expecting”. When expressing empathy towards someone, you are recognising that you can relate to how that person is feeling and attempting to understand their experience from their perspective, whereas sympathy involves recognising and feeling concern for someone’s experience without necessarily attempting to understand it from their perspective.

A common visual representation that is used to differentiate the two terms is the idea of seeing someone “stuck in a hole”. On the left, sympathy is represented by the person observing someone who is struggling from outside of the “hole,” expressing concern for their situation without entering into their experience. In contrast, empathy is represented by the person sitting inside the “hole” alongside them, suggesting an attempt to understand what the experience feels like from their perspective. The image therefore illustrates how sympathy can involve feeling for someone, whereas empathy involves attempting to understand and connect with what someone is feeling.

How these terms impact emotionally demanding research

For researchers, the distinction between sympathy and empathy may have important implications for how participants’ experiences are understood and represented. While sympathy involves recognising and feeling concern for another person’s experience, empathy involves attempting to understand that experience from the individual’s perspective. A sympathetic response may therefore position participants primarily through their difficulties, whereas empathy encourages researchers to consider how participants themselves understand and experience their circumstances. However, empathic engagement also requires researchers to remain aware of their own emotional responses, especially when the emotionally demanding topic is something they have lived experiences of. Researching sensitive and traumatic topics can have emotional and psychological impacts on researchers, with researchers reporting experiences of distress and secondary or vicarious trauma (Karcher et al., 2024; Skinner et al., 2025). This may be particularly relevant where researchers are repeatedly exposed to distressing accounts throughout the research process, including during interviews, transcription, analysis and writing.

Indeed, recent research has conceptualised this cumulative impact as ‘empathic strain’, describing the potential emotional consequences of sustained engagement with distressing narratives without adequate organisational support (Mocnik, 2026). Consequently, researchers may need to balance empathic engagement with awareness of their own emotional responses, recognising that their experiences of the research material are distinct from those of participants. This highlights the importance of reflexivity, not only in considering how researchers’ own perspectives may influence the research process, but also in recognising and managing the emotional demands associated with engaging with participants’ experiences.

Advice for researchers

Researchers can develop awareness of their emotional responses by regularly reflecting on whether they are attempting to understand a participant's experience or simply feeling sorry for them. Researchers might consider whether they are making assumptions about how participants feel, viewing them primarily through their experiences of adversity, or allowing their emotional response to influence their interactions or interpretation of participants' accounts. Asking questions such as “Am I understanding their experience from their perspective or interpreting it from my own?” can encourage greater self/other-awareness and help researchers distinguish empathic engagement from sympathetic responses.

Perhaps the goal is not for us to become less affected by the research, but for us to aim to become more aware of how it affects us. Recognising our emotions, reflecting on them and knowing when we need support can help us remain present for participants without losing sight of our own wellbeing. After all, looking after ourselves is not separate from doing good research…it is part of it!