When you are very empathic with another person and have affective empathy, you tend to absorb some of their negativity to form a connection with them if they are feeling sad, depressed, or hopeless. In the scientific literature, this phenomenon is called "emotional contagion." When you empathize with someone, you absorb some of their negativity, and it can actually affect you negatively. This emotional contagion can lead to burnout because feeling what they are feeling doesn't necessarily help them feel better. Much like another kind of contagion, such as an infection, when you get infected by someone else, it doesn't reduce the amount of infection they feel. A lot of research on empathy shows that once this contagion happens, you suffer, and it doesn't necessarily lead to a benefit for others.

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