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Sensitivity vs Empathy - What's the difference?

sensitivity | empathy |

As nouns the difference between sensitivity and empathy

is that sensitivity is the quality of being sensitive while empathy is the intellectual identification of the thoughts, feelings, or state of another person.

sensitivity

English

Noun

(wikipedia sensitivity) (sensitivities)
  • The quality of being sensitive.
  • The ability of an organism or organ to respond to external stimuli.
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author= Fenella Saunders, magazine=(American Scientist)
    • , title= Tiny Lenses See the Big Picture , passage=The single-imaging optic of the mammalian eye offers some distinct visual advantages. Such lenses can take in photons from a wide range of angles, increasing light sensitivity . They also have high spatial resolution, resolving incoming images in minute detail.}}
  • (statistics) The proportion of individuals in a population that will be correctly identified in a binary classification test.
  • (electronics) The degree of response of an instrument to a change in an input signal.
  • (photography) The degree of response of a film etc. to light of a specified wavelength.

    • empathy

    English

    Noun

    (wikipedia empathy)
  • the intellectual identification of the thoughts, feelings, or state of another person
  • capacity to understand another person's point of view or the result of such understanding
    • She had a lot of empathy for her neighbor; she knew what it was like to lose a parent too.
  • (parapsychology, science fiction) a paranormal ability to psychically read another person's emotions

    • Usage notes

    Used similarly to sympathy, interchangeably in looser usage. In stricter usage, empathy is stronger and more intimate, meaning that the subject understands and shares an emotion with the object – as in “I feel your pain” – while (term) is weaker and more distant – concern, but not shared emotion: “I care for you”.