Empathy is the experience of understanding others’ emotions and being emotionally affected by
them. It is a multidimensional construct that comprises a cognitive component (perceiving the
other’s emotions and experiences) and an emotional component (the embodied emotional
experience of “stepping into somebody else’s shoes”). Empathy is generally thought to be critical to positive interpersonal relationships and a binding force in societies that contributes to upholding
moral behaviour and to the wellbeing of communities (see Gaspar, 2016).