Is empathy a social construct?

Post Reply New Topic

It is often said that autistic people lack empathy. I think many of us (most of us?) disagree, but it got me thinking. I think NT empathy is an illusion. NTs are just as selfish and oblivious to suffering as any AS, but they feel more connected to their peers. Connectedness to peers and abstract empathy are different.

For example, in an Onion sketch, an autistic reporter cares more for a train than for the person who fell under its wheels. Does this show some fundamental lack of empathy that would never be true of an NT? Imagine this was hundreds of years ago. Instead of a train it is an expensive race horse. A peasant accidentally runs in front of the horse and is killed, injuring the horse. The race horse owner would probably care more for the horse than the peasant. You can see similar events in many old novels and throughout history.

If the person who died under the train was a hated enemy, or a local drug dealer or pedophile, would people mourn the death or see divine justice? Empathy is not natural, self interest is. NTs and AS just express it differently.

NTs are just as likely to care for things above people. If some stranger loses their job, do you care? But if you lose a treasured possession you worry.

Empathy is confused with connectedness. People do not care if other people die, people only care if their own lives are affected. The people on the train carried on happily while millions die of starvation and wars in distant lands. Yet when a single person dies close to them, everything stops.

The autistic person has plenty of empathy: empathy for the train. He also had empathy for the needs of others to get to their destination. But his empathy is objective (the dead person is gone and the living are still here). We could argue that caring more for the dead would benefit the living, but that is not empathy, it is self interest.

NTs connect more to people near them and less to other things. AS people connect equally to everything. I think that is the difference, not empathy.

Very interesting ideas. It makes me think about the 'selfish gene' theory, where individuals care for others closely related to them, because they share genes. This extends to people of the same race and diminishes as we get further and further away.

This does not seem to affect me to the same extent as others. Although as another WP member living in Scotland, I do feel some sort of connectedness to you, trappedinhell, especially as there's only a handful of us on here.

Of course, I get upset if someone close to me dies and it has a direct impact on my life. But, I feel just as much for someone living in Mongolia as I would for a neighbour, who is more likely to share some recent common ancestry. I can get angry at the phrase 'charity begins at home'. And I hate when people make light of animal cruelty, saying that it doesn't matter because it wasn't a child.

As for inanimate objects, I can't really comment. I don't get attached to many objects, except photos and my artwork.

Yes and no.

There's a lot in your post and I'm really just collecting the thoughts that went through my head.

Are NTs generally governed by self interest? Probably yes, except for the altruistic lot and you could argue that that too is self interest because doing good deeds makes them feel good so it is a means to an end. However, the good things they do are still getting done and that deserves credit.

Is empathy based on connectedness? I'm not sure. The word empathy is now so overused generally that it has come to mean some form of 'super sympathy'. What it really means is, being able to feel what someone else is feeling, and being able to correctly sense another's motivation without necessarily having many external clues to go on (the dreaded theory of mind).

This empathy is  not restricted to people I personally know (could be someone on the telly), nor is it restricted to people who are like me (what you are calling peers). Though it is probably true that empathy is the more difficult to have with someone the more different the person is from oneself. Harder, but not impossible.

So AS empathy with the commuters who were delayed by the crash rings true - Aspies don't like their routines upset, so when others' routines are upset the empathy is genuine, if slightly misdirected from  an NT perspective. After all how important is it really to get home exactly the same time as usual in the grand scheme of things. At the time, very, on reflection an irrelevance compared to the events that brought the delay about.

The empathy expected is perhaps not primarily with the dead person but with their relatives and friends. It is true there is self reference/comparison in this (how would I feel if it was my husband who got killed?) - then you feel what you feel in that situation, and then you realise this is how theses other relatives must feel, voilà empathy. 

A racehorse it completely different from a train as it is a sentient being, with intelligence. A train is neither of those.  

I used the words 'expected' empathy which may well point towards it being a social concept. In so far as it is undoubted a learned behaviour and not innate. That is why NTs with a lousy upbringing also struggle on the empathy front.

It is not a social construct, in that it hasn't been created by society, society has been created by it.

Empathy arises from connectivity. Connectivity arises through bio/chemical processes.

Empathy is selfish, no doubt in my mind. Humans have developed with leveraging mutual selfishness as a primary strategy for viability and species success = basis for society

Person I don't have a personal connection with feels bad = not so much of a problem because it isn't triggering the emotional stimulus that would be the impetus to do something about it.

Person I do have a personal connection with feels bad = I feel 'bad' now it's a problem, and I want to help that person, so I can feel better = basis for society

I don't know if that's necessarily true. I think that's rather too simple

Some people have more or less ability to feel connectivity with more or less people and things or different people and things

I disagree.

A few weeks ago I got roped into photographing a christening of an 18 month old in the usual nobody ever talks to you unless they want to use you for some skill that you have that seems to be the limit of 'making friends' ability.

I am dutifully shooting away and we get to the important bit, the crossing of the child's forehead with the holy water. In a CofE ceremony this is done by the priest, the parents and the godparents so the poor innocent child gets soaked 5 times.

Halfway through this ritual, when the priest and both parents had already done the wetting of the head bit, the priest is holding the child on one arm and the holy water in the other hand while reciting some mumbo jumbo to the first godparent.

The child reaches down, dips his finger in the water and crosses himself on his forehead.

Everybody finds this very funny and everybody laughs.


What is the point of this story?

Well while that was happening I was shooting in continuous mode, I captured the event at three frames per second, flicking through the sequence afterwards is the interesting bit.

There are five adults in the frame these people are not a close knit group, the parents had met the priest twice and the godparents had never met the priest. Despite this they all react identically.

They react at exactly the same time to the event and in exactly the same way to the exact same degree and for the exact same length of time.

There is the concern that child might fall, identical change in facial expression and hand position.
Then there is the realisation that the child is crossing himself and there is an identical look of surprise and relaxation of posture.
Then there is the comedy of the situation, all five adults lean backwards arching their backs the same amount, tilt their heads back the same amount laughing.
Then they all return their heads to a normal position at exactly the same time, all having a big smile on their faces.

All of these reactions by 5 strangers, are identical and timed identically, as if they were taking part in a perfectly choreographed ballet.

This is unconscious programming. These people are not consciously responding to each other or their environment, they are not thinking about how to react or using theory of mind they are reacting unconsciously using a pre determined, programmed behaviour.


I also found the situation very funny and very cute, I can study in depth the way NT's react form a rule and imitate that behaviour but I can never, ever react consciously at the same speed that NT's react unconsciously. By the time I have figured out the correct response to the situation, the moment has passed.

It is the same with smiling at a girl in the supermarket, by the time you realise you should smile back the permitted time for a response has already passed and your lack of instant reciprocity has been taken as a sign of hostility or rejection.

People have empathy.

How that empathy is utilized is the social construct.

There are certain neurological variants that present as empathy deficits. Depending on the social construct, these deficits can have minimal impact or create significant challenges.

Some argue that all we need to do is change the social construct and we are suddenly no longer autistic. The fallacy here is that social constructs emanate from the collective actions of the whole and this whole is dominated by a neurology decidedly different than that of an autistic's. The underlying neurological differences would still reflect that of a minority population and any social construct would still disallow an out-sized influence on the construct as a whole.

We will always be a minority and, while we can influence the social construct, we will always have the amount of that influence attenuated by the needs and perceptions of the whole.

In my experience, NTs outwardly show empathy, whether it is true empathy or fake. Aspies may have empathy for any given situation, but don't show or express it. Or if we do express it, it may not be what others expect.

For example: if someone dies, I'm not the type of person to go up and hug their family members saying, "I'm really sorry." I feel sad that the person has died, but keep these feelings, and any outward expression of them, inside. Does that mean I don't have empathy? Not at all.

Empathy is when a NT watches someone got hurt, blead, cry or should do so and flinches himself, feels hurt himself from watching, is worried and cares about it.

My wife watches a cruel scene in a movie and the reacts about it. Someone got hurt and she flinshs and makes noises, sometimes even cries out loud because of what she sees. I am watching it as well, but I just do not feel a thing about it. Someone get a cut or looses a arm or whatever, gets run over by a car or whatever you like... I do not feel for that. I cannot imagine that it hurts by feeling it. I analyze it and think it would hurt if it would be real. But I do not feel anything. Same goes with a car crash. I had one and I did not panic about the other driver if she could be hurt, I just went over and checkted if she is alright, then secured the site so no other car would drive into us.

If someone get hurt and cries in my presents, I just do not care. I often just do not know what to do about it if it is just emotional and not because of a physical pain. I know, ah I learned to hug and talk softly to ease the pain. But if it needs medical attention, I see to it as wel as I am able to. I stay cool and do not react emotional. I guess that is this lack of empathy. And yes, I realized it by now, because I read about it what empathy is and what aspies do not have.

that is not the lack of a emotional bond that I care about someone. Sure I care about my wife if she is in pain and I have my trouble staying cool. I try to help here more than if she would be someone I do not care. But still, I do not even close feel any pain myself when I see here being in pain. She knows about it and would never ask me if I do not care and alike. She knows that I lack this kind of empathy.

I wonder if the unspeakable truth is that we do feel it, we just don't value it as much? For example, I am always thinking of the millions who die of hunger. I also think of the reasons why death is a necessary part of life. We all die, so when a family member dies of old age after a life of relative comfort I cannot get too upset. I can see why others get upset, so I empathize, but I don't share their world view.


True. But the people aboard it are sentient, and its owner is sentient. The reporter's concern seemed to be for them. I agree with you, he was probably thinking how he would feel, as he values routine.


Good point.

Good answer!
But another approach is to view society as a series of exchanges and conflicts that can evolve blindly. Some work, some don't, regardless of whether we understand the inside of the other person's head.

I don't care about empathy, but I pretend to in social situations because the social rules command that I do. Now, I'm not usually one to simply conform to social rules, but as you lot undoubtedly know, NTs see it as a big deal if you don't pretend to care about other people as they do.

So, yeah, I agree with the OP. Empathy is just a big stupid social rule.

That's a great story. But are you saying that social conditioning cannot become unconscious?


I agree that AS people take longer to process some stimuli. But they may be faster in other areas. For example, if you were obsessed with games (where a narrower range of behaviors is likely) then you may react faster to the enemy than the typical NT: you may have more empathy in that scenario.

Do you think there are scenarios where these variants would allow for greater empathy? Temple Grandin's empathy for animals comes to mind.

In the setting of "Theory of Mind" it describes the ability to intuit those around, to know how they are inside as person, to feel their mind or essence, at a nonverbal or instinctual level.

What I think is being confused here is empathy vs sympathy. Or a cognitive empathy vs. subconscious empathy or pre-intellectual empathy.

This is where the fundemental difference lies between ASD and NT folk in this clinical context.

Sure. Just another variant, right?

I'm pretty sure 'empathy' is just how they rationalise their herding instincts.

It's not all of them though. Simon Baron-Cohen wrote speculatively about autistics, narcissists, psychopaths and borderlines having no empathy. Taking that as no herding instinct matches my observations.