sympathetic contact

American  

noun

Sociology.

1. behavior toward an individual based on the individual's personal makeup rather than on their group membership.

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Etymology

Origin of sympathetic contact

First recorded in 1840–50

Example Sentences

If one could grasp the sweeter subtleties of Nature, he might find a gracious accord, a point of sympathetic contact, where the mellowness of the individual, the rich and generous juices of his nature, give a finer quality to the fruits of the trees which he has planted.

From Project Gutenberg

It is the sane and sympathetic contact with the common destiny, which I get at her house and my sister's that keeps me from the resort of successive and inconsequent passions, such as fill the void in the lives of too many women who are under the necessity of producing daily the materials of fire.

From Project Gutenberg

"I don't talk with him but now I know him a little better," said the Liverpool manager, who made sympathetic contact with his then enemy when Ferguson's grandson recovered from a car crash at Merseyside's Alder Hey hospital last spring.

From The Guardian

His father had cared greatly for his mother; and could not the love they had both known supply them with the point of sympathetic contact that would enable them to understand the ulterior intention of their two diverging lives?

From Project Gutenberg

It is possible for us, at this crisis of our destiny, so to mould our organic law that we shall be brought into sympathetic contact with hundreds of thousands of our fellow-countrymen who worship the same God, hold the same faith, love the same Christ.

From Project Gutenberg