:: COMPARE ::
The short answer
Mirroring is an automatic motor and expressive echo; empathy is understanding what another person is experiencing. Mirroring can support empathy and often accompanies it, but it runs without it — you can copy someone's posture perfectly while understanding nothing about them.
Side by side
| Aspect | Mirroring | Empathy |
|---|---|---|
| Is | Behavioural echo | Understanding |
| Conscious? | Rarely | Often |
| Requires the other | Present | Not necessarily |
| Can be faked | Yes, badly | Harder |
What each one means
Mirroring is the largely unconscious copying of another person's gestures, expressions, posture or speech during interaction — and, in a separate therapeutic sense, the attuned reflecting-back that helps a person build a stable sense of self.
Full definition of Mirroring →Understanding what another person feels, and often feeling it with them while still knowing the feeling is theirs. It began as a term in German aesthetics.
Full definition of Empathy →