Do aspie's have Emapthy or not?

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I am NT and have two Aspie friends. My one Aspie friend goes against what I have heard was typical about Asperger's because he talks about his feelings constantly. When I told him I was having a hard time making friends in college he said, "Yea it's not fair." and as he was too explained what he thought about it. When I told him how controlling my mom was he tried to give advice. Although when I lost my student ID and told hm, when I was finally relived when I found it and told him that he had no response or reaction. My other Aspie friend when I was down about something asked me what's wrong when I looked upset, and I told him and he said, "I can relate to that." So this is very confusing, what does everyone think?

I am AS and my personal belief is that I have empathy and sympathy for other people... the point is I can't relate emotionally to another person as easily and quickly as an NT can. I'm impaired, not totally impaired... but somehow impaired. If you have patience and you can manage to learn my sarcastic humour an my fearless approach to life then you'll have no problem to discover I can care about your feelings even more than an NT can. I can be bossy and hard to deal sometimes, but I won't manipulate you. I'll never set you up. We can be good friends but not socially rewarding.

Last edited by _BRI_ on 14 May 2008, 8:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yes aspies can have empathy. Not everything you read about AS is true because everyone with it is different. Not all of them don't have it. In fact I think lot of us have it because I have seen lot of support on here so that's how I know lot of us do have it. But lot of us just lack it simply because we show it differently. I've been accused of not caring back when I was in high school. My ex thought I didn't have any.

I guess yes, but I think a lot of us
lack some empathy. There is even an "Empathy Quotient"
that you can calculate for you or your friend
http://homepage.mac.com/lpetrich/Asperger/Index.html
I scored 12 and I think it's correct, I have
a lot of difficulty with empathy.

Last edited by Fred54 on 14 May 2008, 10:38 am, edited 1 time in total.

Aspies can empathize best if someone is experiencing something they themselves have experienced. For example, when my wife was pregnant, I had trouble empathizing with her because I simply can't relate; more often than not, I was irritated than sympathetic. Isn't that horrible? But if I see my sons' crying with a heartbroken expression, my heart breaks too; I've been a little boy, I know what its like. No problem sympathizing with them.

I have taken that test a few times in my life and I always scored under 20.

I can sympathise with someone if I can logically understand what they might be feeling. If the old logic kicks in and says "she's probably feeling sad because she's broken up with her boyfriend - when that happens to people they tend to feel sad" I can be as caring as the next person. Where I think I tend to go wrong is when there are no tangiable facts to pick up on, and no very clear, unambiguous clues such as crying. Then I may come across as uncaring because I don't read the indications of what the other person is experiencing. I would care if I knew what was going on, but probably come across as a bit cold sometimes because I just don't realise there's a problem.

I tried that and I scored 8... But it doesn't say what I am I'm below aspie.

There's actually some professionals who deem people with AS to lack more empathy than those with Autism, which I find funny; others state that those with Autism lack it entirely, and those with AS can have various levels of impairment of such (but it must always be impaired to some extent).

I get 2 on that test.

I don't have empathy--I have care, compassion and guilt however (much like most people with ASDs), all of which are absent from Sociopaths, so those who equate ASDs to being a Sociopath are in error.

Your Empathy Quotient (EQ) is 20 out of 80
_________________
Your Autism Quotient (AQ) is 32 out of 50
Your Friendship and Relationship Quotient (FQ) is 80 out of 135
Your Systematizing Quotient (SQ) is 43 out of 80
Your Systematizing Quotient (Revised Version: SQ-R) is 92 out of 150

I thought the "lack of empathy" referred to how aspies have difficulties reading body language and facial expressions. For exemple many aspies can talk at lenght about their special interest and not notice if the other person is interested or bored, or have difficulties knowing when it's their turn to speak during a conversation.

22 out of 80. That's a load of dookie.

A friend of mine once failed to pick me up at the bus station, and hours later, a mutual friend comes to pick me up. I find out, my friend has been in the hospital, looking over his mother, who had gone into a coma. My first response wasn't selfish indignation (as these results might imply), but of concern and shared grief. In fact, when he was late, I ASSUMED there was a good reason. A week later, his mother died, and I really felt tremendously sad for my friend.

Sometimes I watch the news, and it's obvious that a particular area is going through hard times - through no fault of its own - and some of the residents are still selflessly looking after their neighbors. I experience sorrow at the tragedy, and then a sense of appreciation and hope for mankind. When someone abuses an animal, it's hard for me to choke down my pity and my desire to strangle the abuser. Of all the spectrum people I've met, I've never found these types of reactions to be lacking in them either!

So what behavior is it that they expect in order for me to be labeled "empathic"? Do I have to be able to read the emotions people are hiding, or not fully expressing? Maybe they should learn how to express their emotions properly. I know any emotion I feel, I either express honestly or keep it to myself, and I don't expect others to read my mind - is that so much to ask of others? Am I expected to break into tears every time I see some shmaltzy movie or tearful trailer park reunion on a talk show? The fact is that more often than not, people are being manipulative with the emotions they express, or shallow, or just wallowing about in their own drama. So sue me if I exercise a bit of restraint until I know more about the person or the circumstances.

So yeah, I'm tired of the notion that we lack empathy. I think it's an inaccurate and unfair conclusion based on psychometric tests that can't properly measure what they claim to measure, and the ridiculous assumption that because we don't communicate emotions the way THEY do, that we just don't have them. Stuff and non-sense.

(I don't mean to sound angry at anyone here - you are all made of win and awesome; it's the cultural assumption that's making me upset.)

My emotions are real and immense... and often inappropriate in scale or degree. The emotions of others are tangible; they're just like reading Sanskrit at times. I would not say that those whose world is coloured by the various parts of ASD are unemotional, but that they may have difficulty finding the right emotional response or fully comprehending the emotional reactions of others. I rely very strongly on what I have learned different body postures mean - and do a spectacular face-plant when I encounter someone with atypical body language. Facial geometry is another method I use to key in, but it also is very limited. Asking questions for clarity has helped prevent some major faux pas; at the same time, it makes me extraordinarily self-conscious to do so. Lastly, if there has been some work done in social adjustment, it could also be that he/she has learned that certain words are expected in certain situations and is acting accordingly. My two bits, for what it is worth.


M.

Yeah, I get irritated by it, too. Although, I've found myself aksing my husband and friends, "What's empathy? I don't understand it." In their explanations, they've given me examples of situations where I do have empathy for ppl (those that have lost a child, for instance, since I've been in that situation). I feel like empathy is such a weird emotion or feeling or whatever to have. It doesn't make sense to me. I think I'm getting caught up in the word itself rather than the concept.

Sympathy does it, too. Maybe I need to go visit dictionary.com and look things up.

I would like to know who and how they came up with the questions for this test. I scored 26 but think I am a very empathetic person. I work in social services and often feel so much pain at the discomfort of the clients I work with that it is painful. I may not be able to give a hug or know what to say but I try and "problem solve" to alleviate as much of their pain and discomfort as possible. The NT's I worked with appeared unaffected and indifferent to it.

I thought many of the questions were based on in ability to read NV communication then empathy and was based on a "pre conception" that people with NVLD are less empathetic. You can't have an accurate conclusion if you are basing your questions on a misconception....not logical.

I think the fact that we "problem solve" instead of communicate our sympathy with their feelings in a comforting way is what they mean when they say we lack empathy. That is one reason the average scores were so much higher for women than men. If you buy into the whole venus/mars thing, women are supposedly more likely to want this "empathy" for their problems, whereas men are more likely to offer them practical solutions to the problems. Hence the argument that aspies have an "extreme male" brain, regardless of gender.