Explore the Traits and Tactics of Dark Empaths: How They Use Empathy to Manipulate and Control, and Learn to Identify These Hidden Dangers in Your Social Circles.
Having empaths in your friend group is often beneficial. An empath is highly sensitive to others’ emotions, allowing them to understand your feelings and offer timely help, advice, and comfort. However, not all empaths are safe and nurturing. On TikTok, the term “what is a dark empath” is trending with over 2.5 million mentions. Dark Empath traits can be pretty unsettling.
Understanding Dark Empaths
Dark empaths are described as individuals who use their empathy (the ability to sense and understand others’ emotions) not to help but to manipulate others for personal gain. The dark empath meaning involves using cognitive empathic skills to exploit others. They can make you feel more understood and heard than ever, giving the impression that they genuinely care about you. But their main or sole concern is how you can help them achieve their financial, business, social, or other goals. This is the core of the dark empath personality type.
This is because empathy comes in different forms. Psychologists often categorize empathy into three types: cognitive, emotional, and compassionate, known as the empathy triad.
Cognitive vs. Emotional Empathy
Cognitive empathy involves logically understanding others’ feelings and needs. Examples include a salesperson identifying a customer’s desire to make a sale. Those with only cognitive empathy, like a cognitive empathy narcissist, can grasp what drives others but may remain detached, like impartial observers, even when those around them are suffering.
In contrast, those with affective empathy, also known as emotional empathy, can’t stay detached because they experience others’ feelings as if they’re going through the same situations. For example, if you’re facing a health crisis, they may feel the same worry, distress, and even pain you’re experiencing through emotional contagion. Rather than observing from the sidelines, they must either leave with genuine concern or take action to improve the situation to alleviate their feelings.
The Power of Compassionate Empathy
Compassionate empathy goes a step further and is marked by a strong desire to help others and engage in prosocial behavior. This is when someone is naturally driven to provide support, assistance, or whatever is needed to help others feel better. If you’re going through a health crisis, someone with compassionate empathy may feel compelled to temporarily set aside their own goals to focus on you until the crisis passes. When someone possesses all three types of empathy and can understand, feel, and be motivated to help actively, that’s when truly remarkable things can happen.
Dark Empaths and Manipulation
This isn’t the case with dark empaths, who typically only have cognitive empathy, which allows them to manipulate others without feeling the impact of their actions. Of course, dark empaths may claim to have other types of empathy because their cognitive empathy tells them it’s what others want to hear. After all, who wants to be told, “I know what’s causing your pain and how to help you, but honestly, I don’t care at all?”
Recognizing Dark Empath Traits
Some key signs of a dark empath include emotional manipulation, gaslighting, ghosting, and love bombing – common manipulation tactics used by those with manipulative personalities.
Dark Empathy in Psychological Studies
While not officially recognized in the DSM-V, dark empathy was described in a 2021 study published in Personality and Individual Differences. Researchers from Nottingham Trent University found that dark empaths typically display traits from the “Dark Triad”: Machiavellianism (manipulating others), psychopathy (callousness and charm), and narcissism (inflated self-importance). The Dark Triad is associated with antisocial behavior, cynicism, grandiosity, and manipulative strategies.
Comparing Dark Empaths to Other Personality Types
However, dark empaths differ from psychopaths and narcissists. Unlike narcissists, who may struggle with self-awareness and reading others, dark empaths often recognize their flaws and possess cognitive empathy. This ability to understand others’ emotions, known as the theory of mind, also sets them apart from psychopaths, who generally lack empathy altogether and show empathic deficits. An evil empath vs psychopath comparison shows dark empaths have more cognitive empathy, while a dark empath vs narcissist comparison reveals dark empaths are more self-aware. Dark empaths display a unique combination of emotional intelligence, social acuity, and dark emotional intelligence that allows for callous exploitation.
Identifying Dark Empaths
It’s important to note that dark empaths are not always easy to spot. Their empathic expression and social orientation can mask their exploitative demeanor and manipulative traits. They may show empathic responsiveness on the surface while engaging in vindictive behaviors behind the scenes. This fractured empathy and mix of emotional competence and antisocial impulsive features is what makes the dark empath so dangerous and difficult to identify. If you suspect someone may be a dark empath, consider taking a dark empath test to assess their traits and behaviors.
Source:
Bruce Y. Lee (June 9, 2024). The Dark Empath: How To Detect, Deal With This Dangerous Personality. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2024/06/06/the-dark-empath-how-to-detect-deal-with-this-dangerous-personality/. Accessed September 6, 2024
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