Do aspie's have Emapthy or not?

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I feel absolutely overwhelmed around people who are in an emotional state; it doesn't make sense to me that I could be lacking in empathy. If anything, I have too much of it. Of course, instead of sitting around and chit-chatting about these emotions, I get so overwhelmed that hey- maybe I want to shut down a bit, and solve the problem, so that it'll all go away! Perhaps many of us prefer to avoid people because our empathy makes us so vulnerable to others' emotions?

Likewise, I wouldn't suggest people who avoid loud noises are deaf; they're probably just painfully sensitive to loud noises. That's how I am with dramatic displays of emotion.

I won't object to someone relating their own subjective experiences; it may be that this is how you experience (or do not experience) empathy. And I can't argue with that.

But if you are insinuating that people with AS must lack empathy because that is the definition of AS... I have to protest. The definition of AS, in particular with regard to empathy, is precisely what's being questioned here, so you cannot logically appeal to the definition. Moreover, we are not defined by the criteria. The criteria form a description of us that is used for the convenience of making an accurate diagnosis. In this case, I don't think the criteria are quite accurate.

I remember getting 35/80 when I took that empathy test last time... I dont know what I would have got though before reading Dale Carnegie, which enabled me to learn a lot. I also got 36/80 for systemising.. so it was a weird result to get. My result put me somewhere between aspie and NT - not particularly empathetic but not particularly good at systemising either.

tharn...I have wondered the same thing myself. If perhaps (some) of us are so hypersensitive to desplays of destress that we become over whelmed. Perhaps it is like other sensitivities...some of us are hper and others are hypo? I think someone who is hyper can look hypo when they have to escape the over stimulation and those who are hypo may appear empathetic because they can just sit there with the person because they feel so detached from it?

I don't kow, just throwing out some theories based solely on my own experiences. I know when I am working with the disabled or the dogs and I can feel their confussion,discomfort,pain...it actually hurts me. It hurts me so much that I wont the hurt to stop and that is why I try and find a "solution"..I want to stop hurting. The times I have gooten in trouble at work it has always been by breaking rules because I could not stand the pain I saw in those I was taking care of....(like sneaking extra food to the dogs because all the other dogs were eating and I thought they felt left out...or feeling guilty when I was taking another dog for playtime that the dog #2 didn't understand why dog #1 got attention and they didn't ...so I would come back and give them attention)


I used to do the same things when I worked with teenagers and they couldn't sleep...I was supposed to punish them for not turning out their lights but I would let them read in bed until they got tired. It wasn't that I was trying to be "nice" it was just that I had experienced similiar situations and "felt" the pain and wanted them not to feel it because it made me feel it again.....

Does that make sense?

I always thought lack of empathy meant not caring about others. But it seemed that way to other people because we don't know how to react to respond to people so they assume we don't care, plus the fact we don't pick up on their non verbal cues.

I think the criteria is bull. Anyone could meet it. Look at Cruella, she meets it even though she isn't real.

I think that nails it -- and, it does seem like there's an instinct, just a different one. Being left alone, or sitting silently with someone might be what I'd want, but not what most NT's would want for the same feeling/situation. One way is "right" only because of numbers.

I have AS and talk about my feelings all the time too - mainly because I'm lousy at showing them.




Well, he probably thought you were legitimately asking for his opinion. Unfortunately, this sort of question is like the one where the wife asks her husband if she looks fat in a certain dress. If he's NT, he'll offer a quick "No, you look great." If he's an Aspie, he'll say, "Yes, that dress does make you look overweight. You should wear a different one." Aspies have a hard time sorting out when an NT is just 'venting' and when they're actually requesting feedback.



Aspies are also tripped up by this kind of situation as well. In my case, if someone tells me, "Guess what? I found that ID card I lost!" I'd probably just look at them and say the automatic filler response, "that's good." An NT might respond with, "Hey, that's great! You can get into the library now!"or, "Good thing no one else found it first!" You are essentially stating a fact: you found your ID card. Your aspie friend mentally noted it, but wasn't sure what sort of response you wanted, so he/she said little or nothing about it. It wasn't something earth-shaking like someone just blew up a bridge or anything. Sounds sort of heartless, but again, this is the kind of thing that trips me up. When I don't react to a statement like that, I'm sometimes told, "You don't care. Okay then." I'm immediately forced into the situation of having to explain myself.

You must have looked REALLY upset for your other Aspie friend to notice. Most times I totally miss it when someone's upset, unless they're red in the face or tears are falling. I usually don't catch onto mild anger or other shades of emotion until a person says something snippy to me. I can read tone of voice when it's filled with anger or sadness, but more often than not, I miss the small stuff. Again, I come off as if I don't care. I have empathy and sympathy for people, I'm just really bad at knowing how and when to show it.

"Your Empathy Quotient (EQ) is 3 out of 80"

I win.
I'm betting most mundies couldn't get a score that good if they were actively trying for it, and I was just being honest.


Then again... I'm doubting the validity of this test.
Afterall, proficiency in any one of the many given situations presented is a purely subjective matter.... and if someone else was attempting to judge on my behalf I am relatively certain that they would score me differently (statistically speaking, probably higher). I'm not saying that their judgement of me would be more valid than my own (most likely less), but neither is my own judgement impartial... thus the results are inaccurate.
I've taken better EQ tests before that didn't give me such ideal results... but appeared to ask more objectively viable questions.


p.s. "Your Autism Quotient (AQ) is 69 out of 100"
Amusing.

Well, did people consider that this is individual?

I suppose I have no empathy. Or maybe I have tons of it but lack the emotions accompanying the recognition. Who knows?

I don't doubt that this is true that others on the spectrum have many different levels of empathy.

And I've spoken to a person with AS that had a certain sense of basic empathy himself.

I have every symptom except for empathy problems.


I think that you have to know similar feelings for the same situation to do it properly, though.

Last edited by demoluca on 15 May 2008, 8:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

I have empathy, I just don't know when to show it.

I scored an 11 so pretty much no empathy. I've been told over and over that I'm "cold" in emotional situations. Like a lot of others on this thread, I understand what a logical response should be, but that doesn't mean I'm feeling that way. Yes, I see how someone whose house has burned down would be sad, but that doesn't make me feel sad or feel badly for that person. That's the distinction for me.

It can also depend a lot on what happens to you. I had very little growth in empathy up till the age of 16, when I lost my dog, and then my grandfather, and it changed things for me a bit. When I turned 20 though suddenly I started losing colleagues and relatives, it seemed that every year or 18 months there would be someone else, and many of them were young or only in their 40s.

It changed things a lot for me, as people who I had once thought about and had nearby were suddenly gone, and something about life started to darken. So, for me, it is not only spending time around NTs and trying to learn social skills, but also the losses of people I know taught me empathy. But not an NT empathy, it is sort of an AS empathy, where I know what I would feel if I wasnt on the spectrum, but instead feel something else, my own version of empathy. It has to be good enough because it is what I have.

"Empathy is the capacity to recognize or understand another's state of mind or emotion."- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy
"Empathy: Identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives." - http://www.answers.com/topic/empathy?cat=health
Note that empathy means understanding other people's emotions, in other words being able to "read" them. This is very difficult for most Aspies, though it can get better with practice. Neither of these definitions implies that lack of empathy means not caring about, loving, and wanting to help others. So lack of empathy, but not lack of goodness or kindness, is probably the default state for people with AS.

I guess Danielismyname basically said the same thing when he said,

but if there was anyone confused by that, hopefully the definitions will make it clearer.

Perhaps our difficulties with empathy aren't simply because of how our brains are wired, but (at least in part) because of our experiences.

If a kid grows up with an aversion to being around total strangers, he or she wouldn't feel much in common with strangers as an adult, right? And he or she wouldn't have had as many opportunities to learn the social rules about reacting to strangers' emotions, yes?

I suspect that at least some the misunderstanding is because we simply lack hands-on experience with the social customs surrounding empathy, which NT's get in abundance throughout their childhoods.