Pity
Feeling sorrow for another's suffering, from a position of distance and relative comfort.
What it means
Pity is an other-oriented emotion of sorrow or concern aroused by another person's misfortune or suffering, classically distinguished from related feelings by its appraisal structure. In Aristotle's analysis pity arises when we judge another's suffering to be serious, undeserved, and the kind of thing that could befall us too. Modern accounts often contrast pity with compassion and empathy: pity tends to involve a sense of distance and asymmetry — the pitier looks on from a safer, superior position — and so can carry condescension, whereas compassion implies a more egalitarian impulse to relieve the suffering and empathy implies sharing it. This status asymmetry is why being pitied is often experienced as demeaning even when the feeling is sincere. Pity matters for understanding helping behavior, charitable appeals, and intergroup attitudes, where it can motivate paternalistic aid while subtly reinforcing hierarchy.
Examples
Seeing a stranger struggling, one may feel a pang of pity and toss a coin without stopping — a fleeting, distanced sorrow rather than the engaged urge to help that compassion brings.
A charity mailer showing a hollow-eyed child raises donations, but the families photographed often resent the campaign — being cast as helpless is the price of the cheque.
A colleague passed over for promotion notices the softened voices and the careful 'how are you holding up' — and finds the pity worse than the rejection, because it comes from a safe perch.
First described in Appraisal account traced to Aristotle's Rhetoric.