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the dehumanizing theories of Baron Cohen (theory of mind...)

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btbnnyr
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17 Jul 2011, 2:14 pm

animalcrackers wrote:
In order to come up with theories about what another person thinks or feels, you have to have some idea of how they think--NTs have at least some of the same kinds of difficulties with forming theories about autistic or aspie minds that autistic/aspie people have with forming theories about NT minds. In the case of NTs it's easy to say that they can't understand because they think differently and experience the world differently than people on the spectrum. For example: an NT may not understand the feelings or thoughts of a person with an ASD because they cannot imagine having difficulty with emotional regulation, or with integrating sensory input, or with processing language or complex information. I haven't come across any convincing evidence that the same cause (different thinking/experience) does not apply--at least sometimes, to some degree--to people on the autism spectrum when they cannot figure out the feelings and thoughts of NTs.


Yes, I think that NTs have even more difficulty forming theories of autistic mind than autistic people have forming theories of NT mind. Autistic adults have had to adapt to NT ToM, but not the other way around. Most NTs don't even realize that people have minds that work differently from their own. They often project their own thoughts and feelings onto other people. They are sometimes but not always accurate when they do this with other NTs. They are almost always inaccurate when they do this with anyone else.



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17 Jul 2011, 2:40 pm

Minutiaman wrote:
I think Simon Baron-Cohen has done more than any researcher in recent times to dehumanize and pathologize autistics. He claims autistics are evolutionarily inferior – that “theory of mind” (ToM) is core to being human and has evolved to make us superior to animals, but autistics lack it. NTs have ToM deficits in relation to autistics and to anyone who is significantly different or unfamiliar (minority groups, etc.). Unfortunately, human beings are naturally less knowledgeable about and more likely to distrust/be fearful of those who are unfamiliar or different.

And autistic people are NOT “deficient” in relation to NTs in terms of empathy. Empathy is feeling for someone, separete from the ability to understand anothers’ thoughts, feelings, and intentions; questionnaire, experimental, and neurological research proves this. When autistic people understand another person’s perspective, we are just as empathic, sensitive, caring – we are proven to have more distress for others’ distress actually (Bird…Frith, 2010). We have difficulties with understanding NTs’ perspective such that from their perspective we appear to SHOW less empathy.

The “extreme male brain” theory is also deeply offensive. Autism goes against much of the correlations with testosterone and male stereotypes, and girls are extremely underdiagnosed, at least among children and teens. Almost 200 autistic people have participated so far in the survey that I posted here on WP (not all of those 200 or so are from here, of course). I think this in large part because most respondents have been adults, and autism is often appears much subtler in girls and they are much more likely to go unrecognized to NTs for longer because of various factors, but are much more likely to get diagnosed (self-diagnosis and/or formally) by adulthood (such as having an autistic kid and noticing similarities).

Anyway, Baron-Cohen has made so many presumptions without good evidence, against autistic people – just like the deficit-based medical model that wants to “prevent” and cure people who are different. Similarly, his fetal autism studies could lead to prenatal testings and the option to abort fetuses that might be autistic.

What do you think?


what is ToM?



oldmantime
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17 Jul 2011, 2:41 pm

Minutiaman wrote:
I think Simon Baron-Cohen has done more than any researcher in recent times to dehumanize and pathologize autistics. He claims autistics are evolutionarily inferior – that “theory of mind” (ToM) is core to being human and has evolved to make us superior to animals, but autistics lack it. NTs have ToM deficits in relation to autistics and to anyone who is significantly different or unfamiliar (minority groups, etc.). Unfortunately, human beings are naturally less knowledgeable about and more likely to distrust/be fearful of those who are unfamiliar or different.

And autistic people are NOT “deficient” in relation to NTs in terms of empathy. Empathy is feeling for someone, separete from the ability to understand anothers’ thoughts, feelings, and intentions; questionnaire, experimental, and neurological research proves this. When autistic people understand another person’s perspective, we are just as empathic, sensitive, caring – we are proven to have more distress for others’ distress actually (Bird…Frith, 2010). We have difficulties with understanding NTs’ perspective such that from their perspective we appear to SHOW less empathy.

The “extreme male brain” theory is also deeply offensive. Autism goes against much of the correlations with testosterone and male stereotypes, and girls are extremely underdiagnosed, at least among children and teens. Almost 200 autistic people have participated so far in the survey that I posted here on WP (not all of those 200 or so are from here, of course). I think this in large part because most respondents have been adults, and autism is often appears much subtler in girls and they are much more likely to go unrecognized to NTs for longer because of various factors, but are much more likely to get diagnosed (self-diagnosis and/or formally) by adulthood (such as having an autistic kid and noticing similarities).

Anyway, Baron-Cohen has made so many presumptions without good evidence, against autistic people – just like the deficit-based medical model that wants to “prevent” and cure people who are different. Similarly, his fetal autism studies could lead to prenatal testings and the option to abort fetuses that might be autistic.

What do you think?


also, you mean sympathy. we are just as sympathetic. empathy is more like a form of mind reading i gather. apparently it's normal to be able to "read" people, and we aren't normal in that sense.



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17 Jul 2011, 2:48 pm

oldmantime wrote:
Minutiaman wrote:
I think Simon Baron-Cohen has done more than any researcher in recent times to dehumanize and pathologize autistics. He claims autistics are evolutionarily inferior – that “theory of mind” (ToM) is core to being human and has evolved to make us superior to animals, but autistics lack it. NTs have ToM deficits in relation to autistics and to anyone who is significantly different or unfamiliar (minority groups, etc.). Unfortunately, human beings are naturally less knowledgeable about and more likely to distrust/be fearful of those who are unfamiliar or different.

And autistic people are NOT “deficient” in relation to NTs in terms of empathy. Empathy is feeling for someone, separete from the ability to understand anothers’ thoughts, feelings, and intentions; questionnaire, experimental, and neurological research proves this. When autistic people understand another person’s perspective, we are just as empathic, sensitive, caring – we are proven to have more distress for others’ distress actually (Bird…Frith, 2010). We have difficulties with understanding NTs’ perspective such that from their perspective we appear to SHOW less empathy.

The “extreme male brain” theory is also deeply offensive. Autism goes against much of the correlations with testosterone and male stereotypes, and girls are extremely underdiagnosed, at least among children and teens. Almost 200 autistic people have participated so far in the survey that I posted here on WP (not all of those 200 or so are from here, of course). I think this in large part because most respondents have been adults, and autism is often appears much subtler in girls and they are much more likely to go unrecognized to NTs for longer because of various factors, but are much more likely to get diagnosed (self-diagnosis and/or formally) by adulthood (such as having an autistic kid and noticing similarities).

Anyway, Baron-Cohen has made so many presumptions without good evidence, against autistic people – just like the deficit-based medical model that wants to “prevent” and cure people who are different. Similarly, his fetal autism studies could lead to prenatal testings and the option to abort fetuses that might be autistic.

What do you think?


also, you mean sympathy. we are just as sympathetic. empathy is more like a form of mind reading i gather. apparently it's normal to be able to "read" people, and we aren't normal in that sense.


I think that empathy is more than being able to read people.
I have some difficulties with interpreting facial expressions for instance, I can't read them very well and I'm constantly misinterpreting them in a negative way. That does not stop me from feeling empathy. It's almost impossible for me to describe how empathy works, I only know that I'm just as capable of feeling it as everybody else.

But the subject of this topic are the theories of Baron Cohen. I came across them but they do not appeal to me and I have to admit that I don't know a lot about them. I'm just not interested enough. It's a just a lot of crappy "blah, blah" without substantial and concrete evidence as far as I'm concerned. Theories are great but they have to be tested and researched in an objective and concrete manner to check if there might be some truth in them or not. A lot of people who call themselves experts and scientists sadly fail to do that. I don't know if Baron Cohen has stated that people with autism are an evolutionary mistake but it would be very scary if he did. During my most cynical moments I see the whole of humanity as a sad evolutionary mistake, íncluding Baron Cohen and his views on autism.



Last edited by pokerface on 17 Jul 2011, 7:01 pm, edited 8 times in total.

oldmantime
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17 Jul 2011, 3:03 pm

empathy is "reading" a person.

sympathy is caring for a person.

you need to read the definitions for both.

for example, psychopaths and sociopaths can be very empathetic, but they have no sympathy at all. (actually, this may be wrong, but it seems that they would be empathetic given how well they can manipulate people).



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17 Jul 2011, 3:18 pm

oldmantime wrote:
empathy is "reading" a person.

sympathy is caring for a person.

you need to read the definitions for both.

for example, psychopaths and sociopaths can be very empathetic, but they have no sympathy at all. (actually, this may be wrong, but it seems that they would be empathetic given how well they can manipulate people).


I don't really know. I think that psychopaths and sociapaths have neither sympathy nor empathy and people with autism can have both.



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17 Jul 2011, 3:23 pm

Callista wrote:
He should've named it "systematizing brain" or something. "Male" makes no sense.

Regarding empathy: When you talk about empathy and autism, it's important to draw a distinction between "I can read what other people are feeling," and, "I care about what other people are feeling."

Autistic people have a hard time determining what other people are feeling. However, we care just as much as NTs do once we have figured it out. (Evidently more, in some studies; do you have the link to that, Minutiaman?)


The reason why I bring up sympathy is that your getting the 2 mixed up.

The "I care about what other people are feeling", is sympathy

The "I can read what other people are feeling" is empathy

Hence reason why I bring it up. Autistics do often times care about what others are feeling but the problem is they dont know what others are feeling so that leads to misunderstandings. And yeah I was reading between the lines because you kept bring up the maleness in your argument.



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17 Jul 2011, 3:28 pm

My problem with SBC is while it attempts to explain the social deficit aspects of the ASD, it doesn't explain the obsessive aspects, sensory aspects, or processing aspects.

Also, it just doesn't jive well with my own personal experience (though I might not be a typical "aspie"). All tests I've taken indicate that I have no problem reading, understanding, or relating to emotions of others. The bigger problem is I can't process verbal information that's coming at me too fast. I usually miss jokes and have to ask people to repeat themselves often.



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17 Jul 2011, 3:35 pm

SBC is OK, I think he is one of our friends.

I have read some of his work, compared with some other people who are "experts" in the field of autism he is a morally decent man who is better than most.


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17 Jul 2011, 3:36 pm

I would really like to know where on earth so many get all these ideas about the meanings of particular words. If we can't even agree on what words mean, there is no clear communication.

I use dictionaries and etymological dictionaries to get the history behind words to get a more accurate idea of what they're supposed to mean.

First of all, Sympathy and Empathy, though they refer to feelings, are not even close in their exact meaning, and neither one has anything at all to to with caring OR reading what others feel.

Sympathy is when one shares the same feelings as another. When the feelings of one about a certain matter are the SAME as the other's feelings.

Empathy has to do with the ability to FEEL or at least identify with the feelings of another, without necessarily feeling the same way yourself.

"I sympathize" really means, "I feel the same way."

"I empathize" means I understand how you feel, but don't necessarily feel the same way.

It's really that simple.

Autistics can and DO sympathise, but most have a difficult time understanding how others feel when they don't feel the same way.

YES, that is a generalization, and there are always exceptions to every "rule."

It is that generally reduced ability to understand how others feel when it is not the same as how we feel, that stems from difficulty with TOM.


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17 Jul 2011, 3:40 pm

Ai_Ling wrote:
And yeah I was reading between the lines because you kept bring up the maleness in your argument.


If that was directed at me, I was bringing up the maleness because that was the subject I was discussing - and the point I was trying to make that there is more reason to disagree with it than simply being offended.



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17 Jul 2011, 3:54 pm

The problem with these "expert" theories is that the motivation for coming up with the theories is not purely the search for greater knowledge and understanding. In many cases, the "experts" simply want to make a name for themselves by coming up with some simplistic sound bite or 30-second pitch. Maybe something longer that they can write into a book. It would behoove us, the people to whom the theories are applied, to examine the assumptions/methods/experiments/conclusions they make, and to not be naive about the motivations of the "experts". Pretty much anyone can come up with any theory and find evidence to support it while ignoring all other evidence that doesn't support it.

Another problem is that published studies containing these theories only have to pass "peer review", not "logical review".



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17 Jul 2011, 4:54 pm

To understand how others feel it is necessary to at least simulate their circumstances in your mind. If your experiences aren't identical the use of abstraction is needed to empathize. So the main difference between sympathy and empathy is the latter might require abstraction while the former doesn't (because you are sharing the exact same feeling and experience).



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18 Jul 2011, 1:26 am

JohnyJohn wrote:
Ok i never understood the TOM.Is it because i have no TOM(that i didn't understand it)?
Also another question.There is a behavior called 'patronizing'.Some people patronize me,like they treat me as if i am stupid or a child.I get it and i understand that.In that situation who has TOM?Me and not the others?
Theory of mind: A skill that allows you to deduce what other people might know, think, or feel, with a reasonable level of accuracy. It allows you to understand that their thoughts, feelings, and knowledge are not necessarily like yours. It allows you to put yourself in someone else's place and imagine how you would see things from their perspective. Theory of mind comes naturally to NTs, but like with many social skills, autistics learn it "manually" (by thinking and learning about it, similarly to the way an NT child might learn to count or read, rather than because it is wired in). Theory of mind comes harder to autistics because of the mental gymnastics needed to put it into practice.

Note that people who do not have theory of mind are not any less compassionate than others. They will simply not be aware of the divide between their own minds and others' minds, and so will assume that other people feel they way they do and know what they do. An example of a compassionate person without theory of mind would be the two-year-old who brings his crying mother a toy car because he knows that toy cars make him feel better, so he assumes they will make his mother feel better too.


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18 Jul 2011, 6:44 am

MrXxx wrote:
I would really like to know where on earth so many get all these ideas about the meanings of particular words. If we can't even agree on what words mean, there is no clear communication.

I use dictionaries and etymological dictionaries to get the history behind words to get a more accurate idea of what they're supposed to mean.

First of all, Sympathy and Empathy, though they refer to feelings, are not even close in their exact meaning, and neither one has anything at all to to with caring OR reading what others feel.

Sympathy is when one shares the same feelings as another. When the feelings of one about a certain matter are the SAME as the other's feelings.

Empathy has to do with the ability to FEEL or at least identify with the feelings of another, without necessarily feeling the same way yourself.

"I sympathize" really means, "I feel the same way."

"I empathize" means I understand how you feel, but don't necessarily feel the same way.

It's really that simple.

Autistics can and DO sympathise, but most have a difficult time understanding how others feel when they don't feel the same way.

YES, that is a generalization, and there are always exceptions to every "rule."

It is that generally reduced ability to understand how others feel when it is not the same as how we feel, that stems from difficulty with TOM.


Hi there MrXxx.

Sidetracking from the main topic a bit, but I am just a bit confused by what you were saying here. What do you see as the difference between "reading what others feel" and "identifying with the feelings of another"? I think you might be referring to a different stage in the process, i.e. you need to read what the person feels before you can identify with it, is that what you mean?

And secondly, what is the difference between "FEELing (or at least identifying with) the feelings of another" and "I feel the same way". You have associated the first with empathy and the second with sympathy.

As for your first comment, I think part of the confusion comes from the fact that even dictionary meanings differ, depending on which dictionary you refer to. I had to define empathy in a research paper once, and had a lot of difficulty because of the various definitions found in the sources I used. While I think people tend to get the meaning of empathy very wrong a lot of the time, I think it is near impossible to get it 100% right.

Cheers.