Empathy is an integral part of socio-emotional well-being, yet recent research has highlighted some of its downsides. Such findings have fueled debates about the utility of empathy– are its benefits really worth the costs? Instead of asking whether empathy is useful or not, here we examine recent empathy literature that establishes when, how much, and what aspects of empathy promote specific outcomes. After reviewing a theoretical framework which characterizes empathy as a suite of separable components, we examine evidence showing how dissociations of these components affect important socio-emotional outcomes and describe emerging evidence suggesting that these components can be independently and deliberately modulated through intervention. Finally, we advocate for a new approach to a multi-component view of empathy which accounts for the interrelations among components. This perspective advances scientific conceptualization of empathy and offers suggestions for tailoring empathy to help people realize their social, emotional, and occupational goals.