Is empathy a social construct?

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Aside from the facts that 'half NT' is meaningless, NTs have less insight into NT subconscious processes than we have, and mirror neurones have been widely rejected as relevant in empathy, the logic leading to my conclusion was spelling out clearly and explicitly in this thread.

No, you just stated that empathy is a herding instinct. You didn't really explain it.

It seems like you're confusing empathy with the desire to follow social rules. Having empathy might be part of the reason that humans developed social rules, but there's more to it than that.

I'm not confusing 'empathy' with need (not desire) to follow social rules. I'm saying that when people say 'empathy' that's what they actually mean, and any other definition is demonstrably flawed. When someone says NTs have empathy but autistics, psychopaths and borderlines don't, they're talking about a selected portion of the visible aspects of herd instinct, not some way of being nice to people that anyone can learn (those would be regular social skills).

If you try oxytocin you'll get some insight into what I'm talking about. If you don't, you won't.

That is sympathy.

Definition of sympathy - Feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune.

Which people? Are you talking about the SBC "research" or the ordinary usage of the word. I agree that the SBC empathizing/systemizing test is flawed because the questions mix apples and oranges. They seem to mix extroversion and herd-mentality in with empathy. Any meaningful definition of empathy has to do with subconscious understanding of others. Having a need/desire to "feel connected" by joining the herd isn't empathy. That's simply in-group seeking or mob mentality. It's possible that empathy and in-group seeking are somewhat statistically correlated (which may be why SBC lumped them together) but they aren't really the same thing unless you distort the meaning.


Well, psychopaths aren't necessarily lacking in the herd instinct. I mean, it's likely Hitler was a sociopath and he was a master of herd instinct. I doubt he would be so good at manipulating the masses if he didn't genuinely feel some kind of "emotional connection" to his "Aryan race" / "volk". What he lacked was sympathy and compassion for individual human beings.

As for borderline personality, lumping these people in with sociopaths is pretty disgusting and prejudiced, considering that many are victims of abuse or may simply be too emotionally high-strung to relate to people in a healthy way. They're definitely not evil. I mean, I've tested "high" in some traits of this condition (abandonment issues, anger, etc..) but I'm in no way manipulative or non-compassionate.


That just proves what you're talking about isn't really empathy.

I'm saying 'empathy' is a useless word. I'm delineating the subconscious group identity instincts, which are controlled by oxytocin and determine whether nonautistics (non-psychopaths, non-borderlines) are nice or nasty to someone and are what SBC calls empathy, from social skills/sympathy/niceness/'cognitive empathy'/'affective empathy'/'fake empathy' which are just lots of ways of interacting, and which are what MrXxx and others call empathy. There is no "subconscious understanding of others" except group identity instinct. Theory of Mind is defined as conscious, so it's not that. If you think about it you'll realise that what you believe you're talking about doesn't exist.

I agree that borderlines, autistics and psychopaths form a ridiculous set if you're talking about empathy except in one respect: they all lack group identity instinct. Psychopaths have no regard for the social hierarchy, they just want to rule it. Borderlines act to blend in. Autistics act if they care to join in at all. The social processes used by those three disparate labelled underclasses are different from the one used by everyone else.

Try oxytocin and you'll maybe understand. Don't and you probably won't.

maybe your right, I could possibly be confusing sympathy for empathy. however when I see somebody who is in physical pain I don't necessarily feel sorry for them but I do get a very strong sense of the pain they are experiencing. Do you think that could be empathy?

Empathy is not a social construct. I married a sociopath ; let me tell you, when someone lacks empathy, you fear for your life. You start thinking things like "omg, what if I fall down the stairs while pregnant, how will I ever get to alert anyone?". Wile living with a supposedly grown man. He'd watch you suffer with a smirk on his face.
Empathy is not a social construct. It's the brain's ability to relate to other's suffering, joy, sadness. It's feeling warm inside when you hear a child laughing. It's feeling your heart beating when someone falls down a flight of stairs, hoping they're alright. It's refraining from using others as tools for your own success, when you know it could hurt them.
There are people with no empathy.
Trust me it's nothing to do with "not knowing what to say or do for fear of having them blow in your face", or the inability to read facial expressions.
Autistic people have empathy. They don't watch a child who is bleeding and think " this is just so funny.....and I really like it because now he depends on me to get better. I'll just watch his face when he realizes i'm not gonna help, haha awesomest joke ever".
Seriously. I'm not a sociopath, neither are you all. Let's not let NTs influence our perception of ourselves.

Let us not forget the Gifted people, the ones even in early school that exhibit thinking ability and de-contsruct the group indentity.

They stand off-alone from this hierarchy and manipulate it to use it, or sense it enough to stand out of its way.

Isn't this the thing where you've experienced a similar pain so you know how it feels, so you want them to stop feeling pain? Their pain keys into your memory. That doesn't have a word that I'm aware of. 'Empathy' would fit but is already overloaded with definitions. I don't think nonautistics see each other as connected like that, so if they care about other people feeling pain it's because of the hierarchy dynamics. I think it's a subtle but important difference. Going to think about it.

ediself: I'm not sure how sociopaths fit into my model. Need to experiment more. Like, I know that autistics can gain insight into NT 'empathy' (group instincts) by taking oxytocin, and I believe that sociopaths aren't part of the hierarchy even though they need to control it, just because of how they feel to me. There's something I'm missing. I can totally see how borderlines were abused and stopped trusting their group instincts. Sociopaths are confusing though. If their amygdalae don't work and they can only feel jealously, anger, etc then I have to work out how that affects the oxytocin stuff.

I'm not sure they feel jealousy or anger. I know, they look and act like they do. But I think they feel rage, at times, maybe. They fake rage a lot in order to control others by inspiring fear, so I can't be sure they do, the only thing I'm relying upon to say they do is their word, and lol, we know what that's worth.I have never studied them neurologically but it seems pretty safe to say their only source of oxytocin is their own mind. They are able to tell jokes to themselves, laugh at them, and answer themselves in their mind. Never feeling a need to share the joke to be amused. Weird entities, they are, they would be interesting to study but that's complex. Can't be studied alive (pathological liars), can't be studied dead unless they're known serial killers...

They try to make people jealous, so I figure they must feel it themselves. You work with what you know.

Anecdote: a psychopath I knew was targetting a girl, he found out that I'd visited her at her work, so the next time he saw me in the street he started grilling me on where I'd been walking, then he said he wanted to invite me to a party and he'd get my number from the girl. The intention of that was to make me jealous but he'd already given away his own feelings. So I'm not sure how they see things. Screwily, for sure. I find it fascinating.

Last edited by fraac on 13 Nov 2011, 1:10 pm, edited 2 times in total.

They try to make peope jealous? I know they cheat, but they'll deny knowing the name of the person with the evidence in front of their eyes...
The only time you'll feel jealous is when they've decided it's play time. As in "play with your mind" time .

They think you "belong" to them, but that's not jealousy. It's more of a power play. They can tell you that you're free to flirt with anyone, then you bond with someone else, you're almost free, you can smell the freedom, and suddently they close your cage. Just for fun.

I added an anecdote to my last post. My perspective is male of male psychopaths, so they see me as a rival. They do lots of acting to attempt to make me jealous. But it's just acting so I feel nothing. I like them for that reason. Nasty people who actually feel things seem far more dangerous to me, like wounded animals. If you routinely absorb the feelings of people around you, empty people are relaxing. They only get uncool around girls.

To an extent, yes. I don't understand when people see some tragedy on the news and act as if they are devastated to hear about something that has happened to perfect strangers. Don't get me wrong, I don't like to see bad things happen to people, but I think people greatly exaggerate their reactions.

It didn't help me much either. I read it long before I started to suspect I may be on the spectrum. Now that I know I am, the spectrum explains a lot of why it didn't work for me. Only brought up the book as an example of evidence that even NT's seek training in the realm of ToM and empathy. I admit they do have an innate ability we do not have. I just don't believe high levels of effective use come solely from being born with that ability. They, it seems to me, need some training in these areas too. They're just a lot better equipped to put their training to use effectively, and tend to become much better at it at earlier ages than we. We are not as well-equipped so the same kinds of training may help, but probably won't be as effective for us.

Does that make sense?



Nothing specific "happened" really. I haven't really changed my mind about anything. I've just chosen a different way to describe it. Thus the "semantic" differences. I don't think "fake" is really an accurate word for what we do. It is simply a different manner of processing, that's not as quick or as effective. I totally agree we are born differently, but it's how I think of what those differences are specifically that might differ from other Aspies. I really don't think of either way of thinking as right or wrong. Just different. Most of that difference is partly semantic, and partly the specifics of what the real difference is between us and NT's.

The end result, whether the way I think of our difference is accurate, or your way of thinking about it is accurate, is pretty much the same. We suck at both ToM and empathy in comparison to NT's.

This change in thinking about the details of what makes us differ wasn't really an "AHA!" moment related to anything that happened. It's more of a slow evolution in my thinking. I don't have any studies to support the idea. I don't have any proof. It's a theory. But it's a theory that makes a lot of sense the more I think about it. During the process of evolving how I think of our differences from NT's (which has involved more change in what skills I believe NT's are actually born with as opposed to "brain wiring" than it has in how I think of Autistic's brain wiring and skills ~ which hasn't changed so much), I've more than likely mixed some of the previous words and phrasing I have used in the past, with words and phrasing I believe now more accurately describe what I now believe to be the way NT's process and learn ToM and empathy. That may have confused some people. Hell, I've confused myself now and again by doing it. I've been in such a habit of using the terms "fake," "faking it," for so long that I have during the process of changing how I think of it all, also used terms like "adapting," or "coping" interchangeably with "fake" or "faking." Even during the last few days, I still find myself using "fake" in certain contexts just to avoid confusing others, if it fits better into the conversation.

Parents of NT kids often have to remind their kids to introduce themselves, say they are sorry, ask permission, etc. NT's often jump to conclusions about other people's motivation, and are wrong about those motivations. I'm definitely NOT saying they, in general, have as much trouble with social rules and expectations involving ToM and empathy. Far from it. All I am really saying is that, in general, with few exceptions, they have to be taught to exercise ToM and empathy ACCURATELY. With training, practice and time, they improve their ToM and empathy skills, and tend to excel at both far more quickly than we do. In any given situation, they are also far faster at both processes than we are.

I am saying I believe they are not born with either at the level both can be found at in NT adults. The best way I can think of to describe what I mean is that they may be born with the equipment to process both much better than we, and we are not born with the same equipment. The ability to use the equipment effectively is a different issue. I do not believe NT's are born able to to use their equipment as well as NT adults, which, if true, means they must learn to use it.

As an analogy, if you think of ToM and empathy as tunnels connecting people in different locations, NT's are born with tunnel boring machinery, while we are born with pick axes and shovels. Though we both have equipment to accomplish the task, NT's equipment will get the job done quicker and more efficiently, but still requires training to learn to use, while Autistic's equipment is far slower, more time consuming to use, and requires far more effort. Digging tunnels with shovels also requires some training, and that training is much different, of course.

I've been through many of the same situations in public that you've described, with the same results, so I know exactly what you mean.

Remember though, that NT's as very young children, are not as good at that sort of thing as they are when they become older. They have something of a learning curve too. It's just that they improve much MUCH faster than we do.