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candleholder
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05 Nov 2015, 1:13 am

I was doing my research on Aspergers and I came across a few articles you might want to hear about what was said.
Different articles I'll string together for you say that People with Aspergers don't have cognitive empathy but they do have affective (emotional) empathy, even more so than neuro-typicals (it can take a while to set in).
So for instance when a bully is bullying, they understand what they are doing is hurting someone (cognitive) but they don't experience emotional empathy which would stop their actions.
So aspies would make pretty poor bullies.



Joe90
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05 Nov 2015, 5:20 pm

I don't think I would make a ''poor'' bully due to my Asperger's. It's just the fact that I am too nice, and the only way I can feel better about myself is making other people feel good about themselves.

A bit like this 19-year-old girl I know who lives down my road, who is completely bald because she is going through chemotherapy, because she had cancer. Otherwise, she's a perfectly ordinary girl. But people whom she knows picks on her because she's bald. Some people have even pointed and laughed out loud at her. I don't even need to be told that she is a cancer fighter, or how to react appropriately about it. My instinct tells me that she is a cancer fighter, and I can easily put myself into her shoes and know how scary it must feel to her to have cancer and go through all this treatment, even though I have never had cancer before. So when I see her I always say hi and have a little chat. I hate those people who are mean to her. There's no excuse to be like that towards anybody's misfortune.

This is why I get upset when people say that Autistics have ''no empathy'', and that NTs can show understanding and able to put themselves into other people's shoes and react appropriately. Yeah, indeed. Not saying all NTs are like it, but there are NTs out there who are. And empathy isn't just about NTs vs Aspies. It could be anything. NT 1 could have a problem in their life and NT 2 thinks that NT 1 should just ''get over it'', or ''do what NT 2 would do'' without considering NT 1's circumstances or opinions.

The OP does make a good point; NTs have this intuition where they can pick up on subtle cues, but don't always care or even really try to imagine how the bully victim may be feeling. This depends on the type of bullying. Sometimes NTs use emotional manipulation to bully, but not always. Some bullying can just be for the selfish people's own amusement. OK, we're all humans, we all have probably done some mild teasing before in our lives, especially as kids, but to destroy someone's self-esteem and state-of-mind, there is no excuse at all.

Some NTs fake empathy. There's this woman at work who doesn't really want to know other people's problems or considers their feelings at all, and just has this cold way about her that screams out ''not my problem, so I don't care'' sort of thing. But there is one person at work who she DOES show empathy for, just because she's her favourite person there and considers this person her ''best friend'', even though they never even knew each other before this cold woman joined the company, which was only 2 years ago, and we've all been working there before she came, including the woman she adores. No, she's not lesbian or anything. She's just become overfriendly with this woman and thinks she can do no wrong, and makes a complete fuss over her if she has a problem, but if any of us have any problems she doesn't want to know. She just walks out of the room and I can almost hear her thinking ''I'm really not interested in any of you''.

And no, I know that she is not an Aspie in disguise or anything. I have met a few NTs in my life that have that similar attitude.


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