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Compassion and empathy (using operators)

  • Article

As words, compassion and empathy are often confused with one another. Many people use these words interchangeably. Let's use the operators AND and NOT to identify how compassion and empathy are similar and different.

Learning outcomes:

  • Use AND and NOT operators to compare and contrast two similar concepts
  • Increase emotional vocabulary by understanding the differences between compassion and empathy

Questions to think about:

  • What is the difference between compassion and empathy?
  • What might be different in the world if people showed more empathy for one another?
  • When leaders show compassion and empathy towards others, how might this impact their followers?

Try it

  1. Open Search Coach.
  2. Enter [compassion] in the search bar, select Operators, select AND, and then enter [empathy]. Run your search.
    • What results do you get? Are they what you expect?
  3. Clear your search, and now try entering [compassion] and the operator NOT, and [empathy]. Run your search again.
    • What is different about these results?
    • Try flipping the order of your search terms. What can you learn by researching these topics separately?

Think about it

  • When is it helpful to use the AND operator? What about NOT?

Teacher resources