Lack of empathy?

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I've read many times that aspies lack empathy. I never really felt like I had a total lack of empathy. I was wondering if I perhaps misunderstood the concept. Because if it means being able to tell what's going on in other people's minds, I don't feel like I don't have any. I'm usually able to understand other people's motives and drives, even if they seem completely irrational to others. I think the main reason why others might think I lack empathy is because I usually don't feel like responding to people even though I might perfectly know what's going on in their heads.

So basically there are my questions:

1) How do you define empathy? Is it more of an affective ability (understanding other people's feelings) or a cognitive ability (being able to tell what they are thinking), or maybe both?
2) What do you think of your own (lack of) empathy?

Empathy is putting yourself in another person's shoes and imagining how it must feel for that person.

I definitely lack it. I've never really had it.

I have been told that I don't have empathy and I would have to agree but I really don't understand the concept of empathy. I did a Wikipedia search but I don't think that it really helped me.

I have to wonder if the so-called "lack of empathy" is specifically due to the differences between NTs and Aspies/Auties? I have no problem putting myself in the shoes of another Spectrumite, but sometimes have trouble predicting how an NT might feel. NT's similarly seem to be at a loss to understand how we feel.

This would be in addition to the communication differences involved.

My interpretation of empathy is being able to perceive the emotions of others through clues both conscious and subconscious (a cognitive ability, I guess), and then imagining how that person must feel, so you can 'empathise' with them; i.e. imagine their emotions as if they were your own.

I do not have that ability.

I personally have as much difficulty guessing at the emotions of other autistics, as I do anybody else. I've been in rooms chock-full of autistics, and didn't feel I necessarily related better to them than, say, a group of field biology aficionados, comic book fans, or visitors of a Dutch Eurasian fair.

1) I think empathy is understanding what some one else is feeling and why without being told.
2) I can feel empathy if I concentrate hard enough and care (not in a nasty way, just have to want to notice), it can be quite easy as long as its a situation I've been through or can extrapolate too.

I get told off for being un-compassionate more than unemphatic. Just forget sometimes how i should act/feel and am a little desensitized.

Going by Mighty Morphin's definition, I also lack empathy. I don't do weddings or funerals. Stag parties? Not for me. Grieving committee or get togethers in a park with candles to remember a crime victim? Some other time. I guess it seems like a callous thing, but that's the nature of this beast.

Are the ones on you tube typical? as I can read them pretty well, harder than the average person but not impossible.

I empathize to a point. Ultimately, I'd rather be happy than depressed, so I've learned to generally not associate with depressed-type people.

The ones that I've seen on Youtube seem pretty much like the standard Aspie who visits our monthly 'autistics evening'... I should say that I don't know how any of the visitors of those evenings would act in front of a camera, nor do I know how the Youtube aspies act in casual conversation, so...

But in casual conversation with other autistics (or anyone for that matter), I am usually focused on the words the other person is saying (the raw information), and not so much the emotional part of it. I'll notice emotions, but I'm far slower at picking up the subtleties of them, so a lot of that falls on a blind spot.

There's more than one kind of empathy. I'll give them names to try to explain.

"Mirror empathy": The tendency to copy the emotions of those around you.

"Communicative empathy": The ability to read someone else's state of mind from their face, voice, and body; usually instinctive, but can be learned.

"Altruism": The desire to improve the lives of other people, resulting in various kinds of supportive/helping behavior.

An autistic person is usually impaired in the first two kinds of empathy. They are less likely to copy the emotions of people around them, and less able to read someone else's emotions quickly and easily. However, we are not impaired in altruism. We are just as likely as anyone else to care about the well-being and feelings of other people, and to do things which benefit others.

So we might have trouble figuring out what someone else is feeling; but once we know, we care as much as an NT does. Because many of us do not instinctively mirror others' emotions, our style of altruism tends to be more logical and detached. An NT will see another person in distress, mirror that person's distress, and help that person because they wish to end that distress (both their own and the other person's). An autistic person, without the instinctive emotional response, will know from personal experience that suffering is bad and that he does not want other people to suffer; given the information that someone else is suffering, he will attempt to help. Autistics demonstrate attachment to their parents just as NT children do.

The tendency to mirror emotions is not necessary for a person to demonstrate altruism, but it must have some benefit. Most likely, it helps people act more instinctively, rapidly, and in a more coordinated fashion, and speeds up the flow of information about the other person. It might allow large groups of NTs to pull together to help one person in trouble. Autistics probably tend to have issues with quick responses and coordinated action, as a result; but not with the actual desire to help. Among autistics, I see a lot more volunteer work, physically helping others (bringing food, cleaning for them, etc.), and giving items to someone else, than I do among NTs; but NTs tend to be more active with the social support and comforting interactions. It's a different style more than anything, one that dodges autistic weaknesses to let you express the normal human desire to contribute to your community.

There's one other group of people who lack empathy, usually called "antisocial personality" or sociopathy/psychopathy. These people have the general opposite of the autistic set of abilities: They can easily read other people's emotions, but they don't care about others' well-being and aren't distressed by the knowledge that other people are suffering.

Last edited by Callista on 23 Jul 2012, 4:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I find that altruism is easily misunderstood when you lack the other types of empathy you describe. People will view you as a kind of robot doing something out of motivations you yourself do not truly understand, kinda just copying to 'appear human', for lack of better phrasing. Since I've often shown impairment in the department of interpreting the emotions of others, once I attempt acts of altruism, they are sometimes met with distrust.

Again, this is where I really do not like hearing the words ''empathy'' and ''NT'' in the same sentence any more. I read somewhere that empathy is more of a personality trait, some people have it stronger than others.
I always believe that most NTs just have empathy when they want, kind of like ''selective empathy''. And I'm an Aspie but I have just that too. Sometimes I can't always be bothered to empathise, although at the same time I am aware that I am being a bit mean or unempathetic at the time, but everybody's got to be selfish sometimes - not everyone's intentions are always related to how they want one to feel every time. So I think ''lack of empathy'' in Autistics and ''empathy = NT trait'' can be a little overestimated sometimes. I think it is a myth.

If NTs didn't lack empathy, then why do they want to intimidate or humiliate me in public for when I KNOW I'm not doing anything to encourage this sort of behaviour from other people? If I just look a bit shy or give of a vibe that I'm shy, then surely people wouldn't want to make me feel even more uncomfortable by staring or glaring or laughing or behaving in any other unnecessary way to makes me feel intimidated. And if that's how they want me to feel then that puts me off because it makes me think I must be such a hateful person that I deserve to be intimidated and stared at in public. But then I can't look like a hateful person to make other people give me that kind of attention that much, if I sometimes get people making friendly small talk with me at the bus stop, or holding doors open for me, et cetera.
So I don't know, I think, like I said earlier, that people just have selective empathy, that sometimes they do unfriendly things like stare at someone without realising how much it is making the person feel unsettled. Or like if somebody slipped over on ice, people often laugh across the street. When I see somebody fall, I try to imagine how embarrassed or physically hurt they might feel, and I would worry if they are OK, I would never laugh at them. The only time I might laugh is if they are laughing too. Even then I will most probably still feel guilty for laughing. And I'm an Aspie, but that doesn't mean I think of myself all the time.

And I still don't get how NTs don't understand Autistics when (apparently) they have this ability to be able to put themselves in other people's shoes and read how they are feeling. And yet people still believe all this empathy BS!

Last edited by Joe90 on 23 Jul 2012, 4:32 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Frustrating, isn't it? It seems weird to some people that you might simply WANT to help others, just like you might want to eat ice cream or play Tetris, because you like doing it and it makes you happy. Knowing you've helped another person is satisfying. You don't have to be in sympathetic distress to want to help them; you just have to be a human being who cares about other human beings. Which autistic people are, at least as much as any other person is.

Besides, when you have a disability, lots of people have to help you. It just feels fair to pass that along to someone else.

I suppose it must be so frustrating to read everywhere about autistics lacking empathy and Nts have empathy for other people but dont seem to know how to read the thoughts and emotions of people with invisible disabilities like autism and aspergers syndrome, judging by the way so many autistics are misunderstood, underestimated and shunned in society and the general public. I suppose it gets you thinking but if Nts are supposed to have empathy then how come it feels like my feelings aren't considered and that people dont seem to care? It must feel like you, as an Aspie, has all the blame and Nts get away with being unempathetic towards your feelings but you're expected to consider their feelings otherwise you are the nasty one being unempathetic. That does not seem very fair when you think about it, and I bet it will make you feel a bit happier if 'lack of empathy' was took off the autistic diagnostic criteria and people stopped playing into it so much.

The truth is, there are only very few Nts who have a very strong sense of empathy and so can try to put themselves into another person's shoes whoever they are and whatever problems they have whether they share them or not, but most people only seem to know how to empathise with those who have had similar experiences. And I can say that and I'm Nt myself.