Why isn't it said that neurotypicals lack empathy?

Post Reply New Topic

A LOT of NTs that I met, maybe most, lacked empathy, at least empathy for me.

In my opinion AS have a nuts-and-bolts problem with real-time empathy because of neurological issues that interfere with the bonding. That doesn't mean, however, we lack the ability to identify with other people (including NTs).

NTs have the ability to empathize in real-time because they have all the circuitry to bond while communicating. This gives them in-the-moment empathy skills that support much more sophisticated communication and bonding than we can engage in.

However, NTs also have the ability to compartmentalize and lie. They can divide up their minds and put things into different compartments. This is how they prevent themselves from getting too disrupted to think or function, when something bothers them or confuses them. They can compartmentalize and keep track of different versions of stories well. They are not so mired in a literal, objective reality as AS are.

This means they are able to make things up and believe them, too. They make up power games, political games, social games, some are always playing games like little kids always playing pretend, but believing their games to be true. It's a kind of grownup version of the imaginative game play of child NTs.

As part of the ability to compartmentalize, lie, play games and buy into their own games, sometimes NTs reduce others to objects. It's a kind of imaginative process where the person becomes a non-person, dehumanized. You can usually tell they are doing this if you track some of the signals they tend to send when they are objectifying or dehumanizing someone. There are certain cognitive behaviors associated with objectifying, and if you learn them, you can tell when someone does it.

Once someone takes on the status of "object" to an NT, the rules of their social games means that it doesn't have rights, anything can be done to them. Don't ask me why, or how. This is just a feature of their social psychology. Most NTs won't do anything to a dehumanized person-as-object, unless they have something to gain. Some NTs have a certain amount of sociopathy without being really sociopathic, and they will maybe laugh at or join in if other NTs start baiting and harassing an object that becomes a target. Sometimes, some NTs have a pathological hatred associated with an object, like Islamists hating Zionists, and then the degree of sociopathy they might act out toward an object of a hated class, can be worse. But to sum up this particular paragraph, it is a feature of NT social mind that once someone is reduced to an object in the group's mind, it is okay to do things to "it" that are unnecessary and damaging, and they are more likely to laugh along with abuse than stop it.

In those situations, it seems as if they lack empathy. But what this is, is an identification issue. They don't identify with the dehumanized object, but with the members of the group instead. So all the sympathy, empathy and understanding goes to the members of the group, not the object who might be getting kicked around. The selective flow of empathy is due to the ability of NTs to identify selectively, as part of their compartmentalizing skills.

It's not my definition. It is the meaning most usually intended by clinicians/clinical literature reference to ASDs.

Actually, from the content of following posts, I can see it matters not a whit to most posters in this thread, what is actually meant by those making the statement the thread is allegedly about.

I agree with this, judging from my own perspective at least. I remember as a child that I had a hard time relating to other children while playing yet when I was fully engrossed with the protagonist character in a movie or cartoon I could empathize completely. I think observed “Theory of Mind” deficit is also more of an issue of not being drawn into the social frameset in real time. It certainly can’t be as black and white as the literature describes it.


This is one aspect of human behavior that evokes a visceral disgust and rage in me. I have more sympathy for the lone serial killer than I do for the mob that singles out and torments a lone individual.

Though I think sometimes the motive for this behavior is not so much about identifying with the group so much as a mutual fear of being rejected or becoming the target themselves if they don’t participate. The need for belonging and fear of rejection is so strong that it overrides any personal moral consideration. This is a survival instinct.

I think there is some of this in there, at least to explain part of why "lack of empathy" is so strongly linked ASC (not sure if there is more to it than that) and not NT (outside of WrongPlant ). The empathy gulf between ASC and "NT" tends to be seen as only one way [sometimes from both sides of it].

Those AREN'T necessarily entirely BS reasons. They might be mask other things but by themselves they do have some merit to them. Which is to say the value system behind them has some benefits, though there can be issues of balance in the extreme and there can be hiccups as exceptions don't match with the underlying assumptions of the value system.

There is value in social pressure for conformity. True anarchy ain't pretty. Social conformity when directed is what keeps many vulnerable and innocent alive, it's the glue that keeps us together. However when there is a mix of ignorance + social pressure it can get really ugly too. It certainly hard to see the benefit of social pressure for conformity when you are on the receiving end.

There can be both. On one hand there is "I don't like causing them pain, it feels bad for me to do that, and I know the full truth [right now] will hurt them greatly". That's positive for one but that is also positive for the target too. Some people, a lot of people really, don't want hear the full truth [all the time]. *shrug* It isn't my preference, so it's a bit foreign to me. But if you can't wrap your head around how someone could prefer it you just might be autistic.

Manipulation is very helpful for guiding those in a poor position to make their own decisions, especially true of teaching and mentoring. Parents manipulate their children all the time. Often for the better, though not always. There are helpful ways and reasons to do it and unhelpful ways and reasons. Also the line between manipulation and communication is very blurry when you look at the basic underlying toolset.

Umm, I'm not talking about "back then". This is even now in a the US military, a fully volunteer force and one that is a fraction of the total population. They bring a huge amount of "social pressure" on their recruits to reshape their values, what would colloquially be called "brainwashing". Overcoming that hesitation to kill someone is an important part of this.

Fact is that people that join the army because they want to kill is a serious concern for the military.

I admit that I don't feel empathy for everyone, and that is largely based on their actions. I am speaking of empathy for the innocent, those who couldn't help their own circumstances.

Simple hierarchy. Person > object. Convincing yourself that the object isn't a person anymore is tough, even for most NTs, and it can be a fragile state where pesky facts popping up will shatter it.

Question. Based on my experiences with my son I was under the impression that maintaining the switch, once you made the switch, would be in some ways easier for someone with ASC. When he first learned the letters of the alphabet it was the phonics. He was to the point of sounding out words, though it wouldn't be called reading because he was just seeing it as a sequence of letters. Then he learned to names of the letters (or he started using them, he might have "known" them before) but steadfastly refused to acknowledge they had phonic sounds associated with them. It was one or the other. This isn't the only example of this, the first two times I tried to introduce and explain the number zero to him his reaction was similar to me having pulled off my own head and dribbled it around like a basketball. Total meltdown.

He's improved this switching skill over time but there are signs that it's still not so much native to him. So I assumed that it was the switching between person and object that would be tough but once there it'd hold faster. Is this consistent with your experiences?

It's like mentally he writes in ink, to borrow a metaphor from Hearts In Atlantis.

Because NT's write the textbooks.

I've learned that by no means am I anywhere near knowledgeable compared to others on this site. You might want to start a new thread asking about this so that others who are might stop in to answer you.

In response to your Q, there was a thread about "broad thinking versus deep thinking" a few days ago, where someone popped in and made some insightful comments about how AS people can't switch between broad thinking and deep thinking as well as NTs can. Also, I commented the other day in another thread that it seems to me that AS people tend to, where there are obviously more than one meaning to a word or phrase, fix on the first meaning that they read into it and forget that there are other possible meanings. IN my comment, I was referring to my own tendency to attach one system of ideas to an object at a time, and not balance competing frames of references.

Again, there are a lot of people here that are quite knowledgeable and they could give you a precise answer about cognitive traits, if you wanted to start a thread.

Thanks for your comment and its info, it is informative and good to note.

You would think so if they didn't do everything in their power to torment such couples.



Which is exactly why I said this does not pertain to all neurotypicals but rather a certain segment.


Which is why I made the thread to begin with. I made this thread in order to counter that aspect of diagnosing Asperger's syndrome.



The problem is they DON'T THINK! It may not have been malicious but it may as well have been! Future consequences mean nothing to them; they never think about the potential impact their actions can have.

I disagree with your generalizations about NTs. But, I don't think that people with AS are any less empathetic than NTs. I think they have the same potential for empathy.

It's just that NTs follow a social norm that someone with AS might not. If someone tells me something, I will come up with an answer that they want to hear (not necessarily how I really feel about it). My son, on the other hand, can be extremely blunt. We both probably feel the same way about the situation, but I tailor my response for the listenner. He doesn't. On the other hand, if he's deeply moved by something, he might just burst into tears. I would hold back my tears.

NTs do this to me all the time. Anything they do to me is acceptable, but if I say something back to them everyone accuses me of being mean. As if I could actually be MEAN to the popular crowd, I have come to the conclusion that the concept is impossible. They don't appear to have feelings that can be hurt the way unpopular people do. You tell a popular person that they're an ugly cow who nobody even likes who will fail in life, and they and their friends will laugh at you and say, "Wow, I'm so insulted!" sarcastically. Say the same to someone average, and they'll be really upset. In other words, how can we bring the bastards down?! We can't.



That's an NT thing which I absolutely hate. I would never dream of laughing at someone with any sort of disability. My NT brother does, however. I have no idea what my mum had been drinking when she was carrying HIM, there's for damn sure.

I think bad people like this are more common in NT society, but I'm not saying that all NTs are bad people. I know a lot of NTs who are very nice, even if I don't completely understand them.

Take a look at my post on the first page of this thread.

I don't think we should read too deeply into statements by 'specialists' about empathy.
I think the point they try to make is that NTs have more potential to feel and display
empathy,due to their enhanced communication skills.
The fact that many NTs,such as bullies,completely fail to live up to their higher potential for empathy is a damning indictment of those individuals.
Many AS people have empathy despite their lower potential for it,which is a credit to them,
but we shouldn't really generalise so much.

I know, pandd. I wasn't talking to you personally. The purpose of my post was to point out the dissonance between the definition of empathy implied by the person who began the thread and the clinical definition you referred to. I was (and am) very frustrated by the fact that, as you say, few people seem interested in knowing that the clinical definition is different from the one implied by the initial post, and that there is more than one way to define the word "empathy."

I totally agree with you. Can't say it better. You explain exactly what I often notice, see and feel like.