Cognitive Empathy is said to be: "having more complete and accurate knowledge about the contents of another persons mind, including how the person feels" (Hodges & Myers, 2013).
I've been pondering over my own experiences of cognitive empathy (CE) and wondering how to put them into words.
I recall the ramblings of an Autistic friend of mine sharing their thoughts on their own CE experiences. They told me how they could only empathise with others when their experiences were of such similarity, but should, for example, the recovery time or any other detail be different they couldn't understand why they would not recover from said experience in exactly the same way.
In my experience it's very much like this - I remember vividly being focused on my pregnancies and wanting to have a baby and in those moments I was able to relate with others who also wanted to be a mother, but once I had reached the stage where I no longer felt the need to procreate I found it to be an almost blanket expectation that this was a rule that played out from that point onward and to hear of others wanting to have a baby triggered in me (even as I write this sounds ludicrous) a sense of curiosity as to why anyone would want to do that. How crazy is that, because logically I can see that others have their own needs and wants but my immediate response was one that was puzzled why they didn't feel the same way as I did. I suspect this is the cognitive empathy that for me appears to be inhibited until my logical brain can step in and create a balanced counter argument.
Image description: sandy beach, sea waves and stormy sunset.