Empathy is a construct that is notoriously difficult to define. Murphy and colleagues argue for leaning into the construct's inherent fuzziness and reverting to what they term a classical definition informed by the observations of philosophers and clinicians: as a dynamic, “unfolding process of imaginatively experiencing the subjective consciousness of another person, sensing, understanding, and structuring the world as if one were that person.” Although consistent with some historical conceptualizations, this definition risks incorporating so many processes it would make empathy difficult to operationalize or distinguish from any generally socially sensitive interaction. Defining empathy instead as the attempted representation, or simulation, of another's subjective internal experiences (whether sensory, affective, or cognitive) would increase its clarity and empirical utility.

移情是一个众所周知的难以定义的结构。墨菲和他的同事们主张，要倾向于这个结构固有的模糊性，并回归到他们所谓的由哲学家和临床医生的观察得出的经典定义：作为一个动态的、“想象性地体验另一个人的主观意识、感知、理解、并构建世界，就好像一个人就是那个人一样。” 尽管与一些历史概念一致，但该定义存在包含如此多过程的风险，这会使移情难以操作或与任何普遍具有社会敏感性的互动区分开来。而是将移情定义为对他人主观内部体验（无论是感觉的、情感的、