Superficial sympathy

Superficial sympathy happens when someone pretends to feel sorry for someone else just because they think they should, but they don't really care. When you give someone a hug because they're sad, it shows you care about how they feel, but if you hug someone just because you think you're supposed to, without really feeling anything, that's superficial sympathy. It's like when you tell someone you're sorry their pet died, but you never met their pet and it doesn't really make you sad, but you say it anyway. Superficial sympathy isn't really helping or making the other person feel better, it's just pretending.