Mainstream understanding of "lack of empathy"

Post Reply New Topic

...and why it's so damaging.

This is from a book entitled Einstein Never Used Flash Cards by Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Roberta Michnick Golinkoff:

Granted, I think she is describing affective empathy, and there is a study out there (sorry, don't have the link) that demonstrates that many with AS have a higher than average affective empathy.

Regardless, most people don't make the distinction between types of empathy. So when someone with Asperger's is described as "lacking empathy," people's minds often associate them with sociopathy. While it is possible that someone with AS can be a sociopath (though this is disputed, too), I'm pretty sure this is in the minority of cases.

NOTE: On the whole, it's a good book about child rearing, though I find some of the details a bit speculative and lacking scrutiny.

That is a very important point. People often say to me "but you can't be autistic, you care so much". As if that is what empathy is.

Empathy is just one portion of it, actually--she's wrong in her conclusion; one needs to lack care, compassion, guilt, and numerous other emotions to be a your typical sociopath. A lack of cause and effect also plays a part in sociopathy too (impulse control problems).

Empathy is just feeling some emotion that someone else is displaying when you have no direct input into what caused it; it actually has negatives to it, as it can whip the collective masses into a frenzy with ease and overrule rational discourse (history is littered with humans doing less-than-stellar acts based on feeling something they have no way of actually knowing what it's like to go through with).

Empathy is an emotional lie, really, and there's no other way to put it, realistically.

Empathy is such an interesting topic. I think that many people, myself included, have only a superficial understanding of what empathy really is. When I was first discovering what AS actually is, I can recall looking at the words "lack of empathy" on some website and thinking that I couldn't possibly have AS because.... of course.... I don't think that there should be any starving children in Africa and that all little old ladies should be summarily helped right across the proverbial street!! I was really shocked and surprised when I took that Simon Baron-Cohen assessment for empathy. I scored really low and was really shocked by the content of the questions. I realized that I had no idea what empathy really was and actually went and "studied up" on the topic. Of all of the things related to AS that effect me on a daily basis.... empathy is the one that "I" personally notice the least. That is not to say that there are no deleterious effects from this. I just think that the lack of empathy that is associated with AS has been the single most difficult "symptom" for me to come to grips with. I have a poor understanding of what it is, I do not naturally tend to these small "gestures" of thoughtfulness and last but not least..... who wants to think of themselves as not being empathetic? I don't mind being seen as eccentric or weird, but it makes me sad to think that I am thought of as lacking empathy. I, like you, "feel" so much. It is a real dichotomy that one can feel yet lack the ability to relate to the feelings of others.

Of course she is wrong. My point is that her view that "no empathy = sociopathy" I believe is a fairly common belief. There is a lot of education work that needs to be done to change this view.

I, as well as a lot of the Aspies I know, am actually way OVER empathic....but the trouble with expressing it, as well as the trouble reading other people's superficial expressions, belies that fact.

It would be much easier if the diagonosis just said 'lacks ability to feel other's emotions as they do' or something like that.

Yes! I get the feeling that "empathy" in this particular clinical context means something very different from what most people know as empathy. It's unfortunate that there is a namespace clash; I think this is at the heart of the issue.

Yeah, there is. However, it wouldn't be too hard for her to grab a dictionary and look up empathy in such. If the majority are ignorant of reality (most of the world believe in some divine being for example, which is just as absurd as mislabeling empathy as several dozen emotional states), I'm not going to bother carrying a picket and poster, because there's too many people to educate with my words (I only have so much verbal energy); I'd rather spend it on those I care for.

You know, I can't remember a single time in school where we were taught about our emotions; how to identify them, how to understand why they're there; their use and purpose; how to best handle them, and to detach oneself from such and use logic to interpret them to form a more complete picture. But, this is beyond the scope of that one single entity that's empathy. A shame that we aren't taught these things from an early age, really, as they're just as important as Pythagoras' Theorem.

Unless people are mistaking an inability to read *common* non-verbal language, and so guess the persons emotions, as lacking empathy, because they're used to people doing that?

I had the same experience. It's only since recognizing this lack in myself that I'm able to understand where some things are going wrong with the people around me. Now, whether I can use this information to help the situation or not, I really don't know. I tend to mentally freeze during confrontations. It may be too late in one particular circumstance. Of course, my therapist is out of town.

Regards,

Patricia

I don't believe that empathy is "feeling other's emotions like they do". It wouldn't be a benefit either.
Even NTs don't do that.
If they did, that would mean that if they met some who e.g. had lost a child, they would go into a condition of sorrow and grief and crisis exactly as severe as the other one. And they (fortunately) don't.
Imagine if their therapist had to do that in order to be empathetic. It would certainly not do any good to the grieving person, rather the opposite.
It's a question of understanding IMO, feelings or not.
I think all the expectation about "feeling just as much" is overrated.
BTW, as I think I've asked before: Who are those "other people" that NTs can empathise with? Apparently, it doesn't mean "every single person on the planet."
Many of us have experienced that at least we are not among those "other people"; but the psychologists "forget" to say that when explaining what AS is.

I think there's a confusion between empathy and compassion. Sociopaths are great at knowing what people feel and how to manipulate them based on that. Aspies can't even "manipulate" people into believing the TRUTH.

There is definitely a difference between caring what happens to other people and automatically feeling what you see them feel.

It's as though they think a person needs automatic emotion-mirroring to care about someone else--as though it's not possible to understand that cognitively.

This ties in with theory of mind, I think; I know I had a rational theory of mind when I was about two and a half years old--that is, an understanding that other people might know things that I didn't know, or that I might know something and someone else might not. Apparently that happens in typical kids around age four. On the other hand, I have never mirrored anyone else's emotions very strongly. When emotions get very strong, such as in a crowd at a sporting event, it frightens me and I avoid it. I feel as though I am going to be swallowed up in the crowd and I feel horribly awkward standing there and not feeling what everyone else is feeling--very much in the minority. I'm afraid that I might somehow be forced to feel what they feel... have my mind hijacked or something. Apparently this kind of hijacking is normal for NTs.

I don't understand why you should have to feel what someone else feels to care about what they feel. Do you have to feel numbers to be able to count, or feel words to be able to write? Some people do feel numbers and words, but most people don't; and yet we've got mathematicians and novelists. Maybe mirroring other peoples' emotions makes it easier to read them; but it isn't necessary for compassion. The cognitive understanding that other people are little universes just like you are, and have feelings and thoughts of their own, and human rights just like you do, is plenty to allow for compassion--especially if you count in the very common autistic trait of wanting fairness and predictability in life. It would make me feel nearly as bad if things weren't fair for someone else as I do when they aren't fair for me--not because I'm mirroring their emotions, but because I see unfairness and I hate it.

I know what you mean about "using that information".... it is somewhat unnatural for me to automatically consider another persons perspective/emotions. I can do it, but I have to use this sort of "Sherlock Holmes" methodology to do it. Probably the biggest problem is knowing "when" it is time to try to consider what someone else is feeling. That is why I don't like the assumption that folks with AS are "sociopaths" for having difficulties with empathy. I almost always feel really bad when I realize that I missed a "cue" to consider how someone else is feeling about something. Who really wants to go around making people feel bad or being viewed as a jerk? The way I see it, the problem isn't a lack of ability to "be" empathetic.... it is a problem recognizing "when" to be empathetic. The desire to empathize with those around us is totally in tact!!



This is so true! I find that realizing that I am not the best at being empathetic in certain situations has really helped me to stop and think about my reactions. Since the people that I am closest to in my life know about my AS, it is a little easier to go back and "try again". It is sort of like the expression goes.... "better late than never". Right?

I don't really think that my family and friends think I am a sociopath, either. I do, however, understand that it is important for the population at large to understand what the whole "empathy" issue really means. The implications of having folks who do not personally know someone with AS thinking that we are all a bunch of unfeeling sociopaths could be really damaging to us as a group. "Sometimes unaware of the feelings of others" might be a better way to describe the issue......

i can not say i have any empathy. i have no idea what is going through people's minds except for their ideas (if i understand them and they are logical). i do not feel what they feel in any way other than that.

i do not care what happens outside of my field of view as long as the ramifications of it do not effect my life in any way.

i do not think about the dismal plights of all the people and animals who suffer outside my field of view.

most people may agree with "what i do not know will not hurt me"
but i think "what i do not experience can not hurt me". i can "know" things without experiencing them.

i know there is starvation and oppression in the world. but i have not experienced it and i cannot see it in my "reality", so it may as well be happening on the other side of the universe.

i have a friend who rang me today and he is very smart and we were on the phone for 3 hours. he was going on about chem trails and conspiracy theories (sad really that his mind is that way) and he said to me that within 100 years "blah blah blah blah" would be happening.

i said to him that i did not care what happens in 100 years because i will not be here then.

he is NT and has many ethereal passions like all NT's do, and he was "offended" at my lack of concern for future generations.

he said that "our" grandchildren will have to pay the price for our ignorance by living in an "unbearable" world.

i said to him that i do not care what happens to the world from 1 second after my death. he was appalled. i said that if the earth was hit by a catastrophic impact and it wiped everyone out after my death, then i do not care. i am gone already, and at that point everyone else will be booted out of life as well. so be it.
humanity will fail eventually as every species of life is not permanent. whoever is alive at the point of human extinction will see a vicious environment that they can no longer live in.

i really do not care about anything that does not affect me or my animals or my friends that i have in my field of view. and i only have a "field of view" whilst i am alive.

i would spend all the energy i have to make it better for those in my field of view if i see them suffer, but those outside my field of view do not exist except as data in my mind.

i have some feeble compassion (i feel bad when i see some life i love suffer), but i have no adequate understanding of how they subjectively feel when they are suffering. it just looks unpleasant to me and i want to stop it for them.



this is an utter ramble and i am not sure whether it makes outward sense.