Empathy, do you have more or less than NTs?

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auntblabby
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10 Nov 2013, 4:25 pm

the hidden part of empathy is realizing that most folks only care about things that affect them directly, and to understand that without judgment.



wozeree
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10 Nov 2013, 6:13 pm

auntblabby wrote:
the hidden part of empathy is realizing that most folks only care about things that affect them directly, and to understand that without judgment.

So true! Both parts!



sternie
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10 Nov 2013, 7:01 pm

We are psychopaths and we think that NT have no empathy, partly because they don t know what suffering is. We think, as I formulated it that the NT has no more ability than the Asperger Autist to Compassion, nevertheless he or she could use projection to provide himself or herself with valuable information on otherpeople s state of mind. But the NT knows no more than projection to gather information, and projection implied in empathy does in no possible way also imply to suffer for anyone else. Or maybe they are endowed with a team of kinmen whose destinies are linked to the own by means of reciprocity of recognition, so that feelings are necessarily due in response to rational interest. But we deny the NT any moral advantage that aknowledgly lies , by definition, unquestionned, in his or her "empathy".

Empathy has no moral value. ONly compassion has a moral sense when morality is understood as the abilify/ability to care for someone as to share their suffering when they suffer, and to suffer diminishing of one s contentement or happiness at the knowledge or news of his or her suffering.

We suppose the arbitrary definition of asperger autism as an expression of both isolation and lack of self-lies which makes NT feel better.

We believe accidentally that the NT is a piece of s**t, because confronted with too many idiots in France. Thus, have stopped believing in "mankind" or as an effect only in the residues we could find in our souls, as evidence of human life and human values.

..

We are a bunch of fanatics with sectarian tendencies and despotical governance, like most communities on the internet.



TheWrithing
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12 Nov 2013, 11:03 pm

I'm fortunate in that I can be selective with my empathy. It's not an uncontrolled emotion but rather something with an on/off button for me.

After years of bullying/torment/discrimination from my peers and teachers alike which lasted from kindergarten to my senior year in high school as well as my father being something of a bully, I learned to better siphon my empathy. Suffice to say all of my negative experiences have made me quite a bit into a sociopath. I learned from the cruelties of the world to not feel too much or at least reserve empathy for those I can relate to or honestly care about. Ironically, my empathy has no limits regarding my cats and the chickens.Of these animals, I talk to, spoil and provide and love quite lavishly.



unemployedwithphd
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13 Nov 2013, 5:33 am

I feel empathetic. The difficulty is being empathic with people I don't understand. Until recently I assumed that NT's were basically like me so I treated them accordingly. Now I try to imagine how I would feel and how I would like to be treated if I were an NT. Dogs don''t want to treated like cats.



Edgar
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13 Nov 2013, 10:09 pm

I give empathy when I am given empathy in return. Needless to say, most people would probably say I'm a terrible, horrible, selfish person.



neobluex
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14 Nov 2013, 8:24 am

I'm sure I have more affective empathy than my sociopath-like peers.



b9
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14 Nov 2013, 9:00 am

all the soul searching and angst that many members are engaged in mystifies me.
empathy and sympathy and courteousness and civil accord are all different things, but they seem to be confused in so many minds (possibly also my own)

i define "empathy" as feeling like you are inside another persons subjective world, and feeling their feelings in symphony with them. you actively and truly feel their emotions as if they were your own.
i have never had that happen to me. other people live in their brains which are in their own heads, and my brain is in my head and how can they ever feel anything that i feel and vice verce considering that there is at least an inch of bony skull separating our brains?
i can never see your brain working. it is inside your skull. what it imagines i can only imagine myself. i can never know.

i define "sympathy" as knowing what I would feel like if i was in another persons situation. if i decide that i would not like to be in another persons situation, then i can feel sorry for them and wish to help them. but i do not have any real idea how they actually feel.
it is like when i watch a gazelle being snapped off by a crocodile. i really would like to help the gazelle and i feel sorry for it, but i do not know how it feels exactly because i am not a gazelle.

i define "courtesy" as being reasonable and affable by default. where i live, everyone is very friendly and everyone is polite and friendly to everyone else (in the course of their affairs).

i define "civil accord" to be the least coherent of the successful ways to integrate. it just means behaving one's self to the minimum degree of municipal acceptability.

if i see someone less lucky than me who is struggling, i will help them.
on a side note, i cannot convert australian dollars to US dollars to help ass-p at the moment. i must look further into it.

how can i know what someone else feels if i have never had any experience being them?



Joe90
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14 Nov 2013, 1:14 pm

Well if saying ''An Aspie lacks empathy because they can't feel that well for a person who they haven't had any experience being in their situation'', then you are wrong. The majority of NTs fail to feel how an Aspie feels because they have obviously never had experience being an Aspie. It works both ways, why should Aspies get a bad name of ''lacking empathy'' but NTs not, even after most Aspies being bullied by NTs in their lives, not only in childhood but also in adulthood?

I don't mean all NTs lack the ability to see how it feels to be in an Aspie's shoes, some NTs are very good at understanding, but that's not the point I'm trying to make. I once knew a man with Schizophrenia who was on medication to keep it at bay, and he said that he would love to give everyone Schizophrenia for just one day so that they can see how it really feels for him being Schitzephrenic. And it goes the same with people with depression too, they often say that people who have never experienced actual depression before don't really know what it's like, and just accuse people with depression as being whiny or lazy, when we're not. A person with depression may find working full time difficult because of having difficulties facing it, but a person who has never experienced depression may call them lazy because they're not working full time. But another person with depression or who has suffered with depression before in their life may realise how it must feel for that person to face going into work and so understands why this person only prefers to work part time.

And I'm not the buying the ''empathy means treat others how you want to be treated'' either. Otherwise if that's what NTs have and Aspies lack, then why the hell are so many Aspies bullied?


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TheCrookedFingers
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14 Nov 2013, 3:33 pm

Too much affective empathy, too little cognitive empathy.



neobluex
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16 Nov 2013, 3:42 pm

I have a "materialistic" cognitive empathy (Person has no money -> Person can not buy food -> Person is sad).



Norepinephrine
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16 Nov 2013, 5:04 pm

As others have said, I think my level of affective empathy is at healthy proportions, but my cognitive empathy is lacking. I can feel for people and am able to "put myself in their shoes" for the most part. But actually gauging how people are feeling can be tricky. Unless it's outwardly obvious, I'm sometimes unlikely to decipher people's emotional states. The subtleties of people's actions and expressions can sometimes elude. But I'm still still empathetic despite what others may say.



coffeebean
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17 Nov 2013, 12:14 am

I've noticed that cognitive empathy is easier around people I know, because I can see when their behavior shifts from what's normal. When my boss is stressed out she tends to talk more, is more likely to slip out for a scone, and will sometimes go for multiple sticks of gum from her office.