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AldousH
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20 Jun 2011, 1:29 am

As already said, physically showing empathy is more a social ritual then anything else, aimed at making the other like you more because you allegedly share his/her feelings about something. I am under the impression that most adults are aware of the lack of sincerity of such displays. Which begs the question:
Why do people still do this? Doesn't the knowledge that the other probably doesn't actually share your feelings defeat his purpose?



gailryder17
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20 Jun 2011, 4:15 am

I've been asking the same question.


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huntedman
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20 Jun 2011, 7:28 am

Other people's emotions tend to just make me feel very uncomfortable, I tend to try and leave the situation as soon as possible.

AldousH wrote:
As already said, physically showing empathy is more a social ritual then anything else, aimed at making the other like you more because you allegedly share his/her feelings about something. I am under the impression that most adults are aware of the lack of sincerity of such displays. Which begs the question:
Why do people still do this? Doesn't the knowledge that the other probably doesn't actually share your feelings defeat his purpose?


There are shows of empathy that are a pure social ritual, but I don't think it is all of them. I think some of the reactions between people that know one another well are actually genuine.

Besides I think for most people the knowledge that others are not actually being sincere is kind of academic. If the person offering fake empathy is a good enough actor, you can pretend to yourself that it is not a lie. I think that is part of why a person with AS in that situation is dangerous, by not knowing the proper lie to tell or not selling the role properly, you can make it obvious that the whole thing is a lie.

I think that the division between conscious knowledge and sub-conscious knowledge is stronger for your average NT.



joestenr
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20 Jun 2011, 4:34 pm

ultimatly this is probably part of what is at the core of the spectrum.

There has been a good deal of reaserch done on "mirror neurons" in short NTs mirror each others emotions, ie I see that your happy i feel happy with you, i see your sad I feel sad with you.
To me I see that your happy or your sad, and I now know that you are happy or sad but that is about it. In some cases I may feel your emotions with you .

I think John Robinson explains some of this quite well in be different (which is def recomended reading) and don't get suckered in by the 2010 paper where the author confuses modeling for mirroring (he studies coping hand actions not facial responses). google mirror neurons and you should be able to find a better explanation than i can give, but there is one that goes beyond it just being custom.

I will agree that what I used to think to my self anytime some one asked me "how are you doing" or any variation thereof, that you don't really want to know, and in truth they prob don't, however since i started asking that of the people I see frequently, many of them seem to cut me a lot more slack when I do something really weird. (which is pretty often)


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20 Jun 2011, 5:12 pm

gailryder17 wrote:
Do you think that when people are congratulating each other, a part of them is faking it?


Yes. An NT recently admitted to me that 90% of their expressions of empathy and emotion are fake. Inside their mind, there are no emotions to match the expressions. They said that they faked empathy for everyone except the few people whom they really cared about, like close family and friends. They said that they did it, because it was the normal thing to do. Of course, this is only one person, but this person is not a generally a faker and is far less fake than most people. Yet they still do this to "fit in" and "be normal".


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gailryder17
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20 Jun 2011, 6:55 pm

I still wonder why NTs (and others, I can't generalize completely) fake empathy. Everyone knows half the time they don't mean it. Wouldn't the world be a better place if we saw people empathizing because they meant it? If that happened, empathy would mean something?


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btbnnyr
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20 Jun 2011, 7:57 pm

gailryder17 wrote:
I still wonder why NTs (and others, I can't generalize completely) fake empathy. Everyone knows half the time they don't mean it. Wouldn't the world be a better place if we saw people empathizing because they meant it? If that happened, empathy would mean something?


I have wondered this too. My theory is that NTs in general feel much greater amounts of social connectedness (a plus) and social pressure (not a plus) as compared to us. This varies across a spectrum, such that some people get more pleasure out of social interaction but are, at the same time, more compelled to fit in, while other people get less out of social interaction and are more free to be themselves. Perhaps the NT need to fit in is similar to our need to pursue our interests or even to stim. It might make NTs far more uncomfortable not to fit in than it might make us in any given situation. If the NT need to fit in and the AS inability to fit in were combined in a single person, then that person would probably go nuts in short order.

I know that some people with AS also desire social connectedness and wish to fit in, but I'm guessing that these desires are not at the level of the NT desires and needs to do the same. Maybe this is why some NTs like to reassure us that we are no different from them, not because they deny these differences intellectually, but because their social and emotional needs to fit in and not be different are so great that they consider it an extremely negative experience not to fit in and therefore have to reassure anyone that they could and would fit in if they tried harder to do so. The feelings they have when fitting in and connecting may be as pleasant as the feelings we have when pursuing our interests. The feelings they have when not fitting in and committing social gaffes, such as failing to fake empathy or failing to follow any social conventions, may be as unpleasant as the feelings we have when interrupted or cut off from the pursuit of our interests.

Caveat: The source of these hypotheses is my ass.


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Icyclan
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20 Jun 2011, 8:11 pm

Back when I was a child and my grandmother died (who I wasn't particularly fond of) I didn't feel a thing. I've never really been shaken by anything that other people would perceive as tragic, even if it happened to someone in my immediate surroundings. I've been told I'm cold, uncaring and blunt. I never cared about that either, but I did always wonder exactly why I am this way. It wasn't until later that I found out I had Asperger Syndrome.

Oh well, as far as incurable medical conditions go, Asperger's is a pretty good draw.



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20 Jun 2011, 8:45 pm

Icyclan wrote:
Back when I was a child and my grandmother died (who I wasn't particularly fond of) I didn't feel a thing. I've never really been shaken by anything that other people would perceive as tragic, even if it happened to someone in my immediate surroundings. I've been told I'm cold, uncaring and blunt. I never cared about that either, but I did always wonder exactly why I am this way. It wasn't until later that I found out I had Asperger Syndrome.

Oh well, as far as incurable medical conditions go, Asperger's is a pretty good draw.


I am sometimes called uncaring, not to the degree you might be. I get upset about things like death, but only when it's close to home. When it's far away, I don't give a s**t (that sounds insensitive). For example, the tsunami-earthquake in Japan? The various storms? Nothing.


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AldousH
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21 Jun 2011, 5:41 am

gailryder17 wrote:
I still wonder why NTs (and others, I can't generalize completely) fake empathy. Everyone knows half the time they don't mean it. Wouldn't the world be a better place if we saw people empathizing because they meant it? If that happened, empathy would mean something?


My take is that it's some kind of a vestigial behavior from back when people where a lot more stupid. It may also be linked to politeness.

As to your second phrase. I've never been false for social reasons and I can count all the friends I ever had on one hand. Feel free to follow...