Simon Baron-Cohen: Aspergers Less Empathetic than Psycopaths

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So people with an ASD diagnoses, that feel an emotional reaction triggered by other peoples emotion, and are trying to understand them to connect with them don't genuinely have ASD? I don't know how you came to that conclusion based on the criteria, not to mention much of the time its not the lack of empathy but rather a lack of knowing how to express it appropriately, not the same thing as not having empathy.

Ignore him, just because he's never felt for another person who's hurting emotionally doesn't mean that the rest of us are incapable of it.

The definition is also suspect, since I don't feel sad for another's sadness to try to understand them, predict their behavior or to connect or resonate with them, I feel that way because I care that they're in pain and so I feel part of it as well.
By empasizing the reason behind sharing an emotion as a mere desire to connect with & understand that person, he misses the whole point of empathy and in essence analyzes it from a psychopathic perspective where there must be a social utility to the sharing rather than it simply being what happens when people care about others who are experiencing strong emotions.
The emotion is shared because we CARE, not because we're trying to connect or understand or predict, but because their pain hurts us too and their joy makes us happy because we CARE.

Whoever wrote that twisted, parasitic definition of empathy is probably a psychopath themselves imho, trying to justify their own lack of caring for their fellow human beings and using misundertood autistics as easy scapegoats to make themselves seem less vile than they really are.

Autistics care.
Autistics have Empathy.
Autistics generally don't know how to appropriately express the depths of our feelings and caring, but that doesn't mean we don't feel it and it doesn't mean we don't care.

Saying that we don't is basically libel & defamation against all autistics as a group.
We should start a class action suit against this guy for defamation & libel.

It's not like we don't have to deal with enough dehumanizing stereotypes, but having this guy going around and lying about us, saying we lack Empathy, the ability to feel for our fellow humans' when they feel, and claiming it's 'science' is just evil & wrong, and it should be stopped ASAP before it becomes yet another excuse for autistics to be treated as less than fully human.

Psychopaths lack empathy, they can't love or care for others, so they are incapable of feeling anything when those around them have strong emotions, because they simply don't care about those emotions or people, which is the requirement to empathize with another, caring.

Autistics care, & love, & feel others' emotions, and WE HAVE EMPATHY.
We are not psychopaths.

We have the whole normal range of human emotions & responses, the only difference is that our outward affect oten remains unchanged simply because such powerful feelings from others are not well defined in terms of appropriate observable responses we can learn & copy, and without those our ability to appropriately socially express ourselves in any given situation is severely limited & often defaults to a blank state.
However, just because we aren't able to emulate the social-instinct driven emotional REACTIONS of allistics experiencing empathy, doesn't mean that we aren't feeling those emotions as a response to others'.

It's the same thing as defining what is primarily a neurological disorder affecting sesnory perception & information processing as a social disorder, but worse.
Allistic psychology assumes that what they see is the only truth and refuse to even discuss with adult autistics what's actually going on inside of their minds, instead basing their diagnostic criteria on outward symptomology rather than the science & what adult autistics have been telling them about our issues for years.

To assume that because I don't burst into tears & hug when someone I care about is in despair right next to me, that because all I can do is sit there with a blank stare on my face, that I'm not dying inside the whole time, is to assume that outward states are 100% indicative of what's going on inside a person's mind, which with autistic people is perhaps the most ridiculous assumption anyone could ever make about other people.

Sometimes, allistics make me want to spit in disgust.

i completely agree--and the last bit that i bolded has been a particular problem for me personally. when you're female, you're expected to not only be more emotionally effusive but also to know instinctively how to comfort others when they are upset, and neither of those things has ever come naturally to me which has led to a lot of people telling me i'm a heartless robot or an "ice princess". it's hard enough to be suffering along with someone and feel paralysed and unable to show it, but then to have that person turn on you because they assume you don't care when the whole reason you can't respond is because of just how much you care......it's heartbreaking. this mis-perception of what is really happening inside me when someone i love is upset has ended many of my relationships of all sorts (friends, family, romantic partners).

I'm glad you agree, but the rest of what you wrote, that just sucks.

You're right that people let me off the hook over non-effusive responses probably partially because I'm male.
However, I've also been pretty clear about being autistic to everyone who knows me, and so they also cut me some slack & will even ask if they're unsure how I'm reacting & really want to know.
They know I'll tell them truthfully.

Females are expected according to allistic convention to be generally more effusive, and less reserved than males.
It's an unfair standard, and it's hard for me to fathom that you lost relationships over your inability to emulate allistic female emotional responses, often because you're feeling so intensely that even if you could pull it off normally you can't at that moment because all you can do is feel.

My sympathies for your broken heart.
For what it's worth, it hurt me to read what you wrote, and I'm sad for your personal tragedies.
Why are allistics so demanding & cruel, I wonder?

thank you for your kind words.
i've only known about my autism since most of those relationships were already over, so it wasn't really something i could explain at the time; and it wasn't the only factor in the dissolution of many of my early relationships--the factor that contributed to most of those collapsing was the toxicity of the people with which i had the relationships. i've been relatively unfortunate in the people i've known--but i have known some really wonderful people here and there along the way, including my now best friend/brother who has many spectrum traits himself (sub-clinically) and accepts me for who i am. i have come to learn that it really isn't the quantity of relationships one cultivates in life that is important, but the quality of the relationships that one manages to make work that means the most.

I've read that book, and I find it to be very interesting, and sympathetic towards people like us.

I think it makes sense to me. I don't sympathise with people who feel certain emotions unless I have felt them myself in the past.

I believe that someone with no or little empathy who reasons that it is right to be good to people has a more firmly rooted morality than someone who has instinctive empathy.

Sorry, I know this is very late here, but I just started reading this thread. His description sounds to me like normal friendship. This is what friends do, sense how the other feels, respond with appropriate emotion, resonate emotionally.

I think there's a lot of taking perverse pride in being 'unemotional', 'non-empathic' etc, wearing these alleged ASD qualities as a badge of honour. Which is understandable and common across human experience - taking what is used to denigrate and dismiss one as less/lacking/not 'normal', and making it a point of self-worth, even superiority.

And then some apparently empathic people can end up at the quite peculiar thought of it's ok to treat this person like s**t, they don't have empathy.

@gonewild that pain theory is very interesting. i feel there is something to it, but i'm not sure on the specifics. i do think i probably feel more of a physical toll on my body than the "average" person when i experience emotions, good or bad.

the pain theory could be why some people say that autistic people make a big deal out of "trivial" problems. i mean, if you repeatedly hit someone else's funny bone no one would think it unreasonable in asking you to stop immediately or that it didn't matter because it didn't hurt very much or for very long! but "mental" stuff we are supposed to brush off.

then it gets weird when you think about how the pleasure and pain parts of your brain share space. that could be why i have meltdowns or whatever when things are so. damn. good. like music or movies or food, etc. could be why people get obsessed with things because they trigger more of a pleasure response than in the "average" person. i mean, obviously no one would get passionate about anything if they didn't feel strongly one way or the other.

it's interesting too that they've now confirmed with science that pain killing drugs also help with emotional pain. which is funny because it's like, obviously! anyone that has any kind of empathy understands that intuitively, i think.

this is a good explanation of the differences, thanks. i always thought i had okay, if maybe too extreme, empathy. i guess i am poor at the cognitive empathy - although, honestly i'm not sure i would call it empathy!

if i understand it right, basically, people tell half truths or imply things without being direct and we are expected to understand the reason and feelings behind that and here's the kicker, because it's assumed that we do the same thing ourselves! spoilers: 99% i don't i either say it or it's written all over my face. i can make a huge effort to lie - i'm okay at poker , but no way could put in the work to do that casually.

i dunno i guess "cognitive" empathy is okay as a term because it requires a higher level of processing and more thinking, but i'd maybe call it cultural empathy because many of the responses we are "supposed" to have vary across cultures and societal norms. really, it could almost be thought of as a fancy name for manners. like with that white-lie thing, i don't think it's some innately human trait, but part of the culture, to appear more reserved, don't rock the boat and offend - i don't know though i wasn't there. on the other hand, some buddhists i know get super pissed of at that kind of behavior and try to literally try to beat it out of their students. not something i'd find useful, myself.....!

( if you want to get into autistic people throughout history i'd put money on the religious folks: structured routine, lots of bowing, rocking, craft making, lots of time to yourself to think, but also a community experience, often a dress code too. haha. could be we are seeing "more" autistic people because there aren't as many places like that for them to go in western culture. i feel scientists are are much more likely to have more of the psychopathic traits put into (sometimes) positive use than autistic ones... )

so to use another example i guess it'd be like when people have romantic intentions, but they say more like "we should hang out/get coffee" and you're supposed to understand the implications, if you don't you look like a jerk or aloof. or if you comment on someone's clothing cognitive empathy people will often take that to mean flirting. uhh, sorry, no it's actually a really cool shirt. haha, i suck at that! i never consider that stuff because it doesn't feel genuine when i interact with people and i don't even notice unless someone points it out to me. i never thought of it as empathy before, but i can see now how it is.

i think maybe it's the words vs intention disconnect. maybe only being able to process one at a time? and it's safer to follow what people say! better to err on the side of caution.

so yeah, i'm the type were affective empathy is high, often too much, like, if i feel your pain i really do and it hurts, haha! i have to be careful if i take in other people otherwise it'd be too much. i'll just generally take in the mood of people around me good or bad. on the other hand, often i really like fictional dramas because it's a safe, non publicly embarrassing way of experiencing those feelings. while, they might be painful, but i know they won't kill me. in a way, it feels good to feel that connected to people on a primal emotional level that we all have inside us.

i wonder if it's related to schizophrenia? because people do put out tons of non-verbal emotions and the schizophrenic brain is perhaps uncontrollably turning those into words and internalizing it in their own "voice". it seems horrible. i get sad thinking about them. it seems like such a hard life. but part of what makes me feel so sad is that it i really can't imagine what they're going through, it just seems like this big awful cloud of suck. or it's like imagining the void, just infinitely bad. makes my stomach hurt.

I have lots of empathy but was said to have no empathy. I think a lot of times a claim is made and we can be forced into a label. I have heard the argument that an aspie is full of empathy but is so overwhelmed in information that they have difficulty expressing it and for others it becomes so painful they cut it off entirely-and I believe that argument is true. The other thing is, I think for those of use who have otherwise been punished by society we are able to sit back and observe human nature and instead of emoting as people want us to feel, we evaluate it and make our own determination about their sincerity and ambitions and thus form a resistance to manipulative people.

i suspect in part, and obviously it's multi faced and complex, it's because we're a patriarchal society, in which, un-emotional is somehow intertwined with logic - which is stupidly illogical if you ask me - and logic so somehow linked to a being a male thing - which imo feminine traits are actually more logical -ie testosterone is linked to impulsivity and risk taking, which isn't a bad thing - but men use it as a smoke screen - have their cake and eat it to as it were... so to me it also comes off as saying "see i'm not all bad - i have this trait that the "good" people have too."

it's a similar reason ethnic groups have positive stereotypes that were given to them by others, mind, because by going along with one it makes it easier to conflate in people's minds that they might have the others, but given the choice any oppressed group is going to be more likely to latch on to anything marginally positive - which ultimately becomes limiting - i.e. studies show people do worse on tests when reminded of stereotypes of their "group", even if they are positive ones unrelated to the tests, if there are also negative stereotypes associated with what they are testing. people also do worse on tests if they are put in competition against a group that is stereotyped to be good, even if they don't have a stereotype one way or the other. the mind: weird, wacky stuff.

also, since people mention it, i bet a lot of psychopaths purposefully go for high functioning autistic categorization if it seems like they are going to get "caught" in order to get better treatment/sympathy, etc. isn't one of the traits of a psychopath that it's never their fault - there is always something else to blame?

and then they might have just been diagnosed by people that didn't understand autism too....if a psycho has a good family they probably don't seem that different at 1st brush as an autistic person with minimal sensory issues, criteria which imo should probably play a bigger role in the diagnosis. if sensory issues aren't negatively impacting you, i suspect the problems you face are mostly different than the people that do have them. like, my social problems come mostly from my crappy processing, i feel, more like i can't deal with it too much at once and shut down or just stay spaced out and disengaged to protect myself.

i had bad experiences when i was younger with people i was told were high functioning autistic and it actively made me fight the diagnosis, but i lost, haha...and looking back now, i think they could have been psychopaths.

i wonder if autistic people might be good at spotting psychopaths because they put out massive bad vibes? like a lot of those killers or child molesters that seemed "nice, average, normal" from neighbor reports if you watch a video or listen to them, uhhggg, they just feel wrong. it's often so obvious it's like screaming at me. it seems a lot of us don't have faith in politicians and such? and don't many of them just seem ick? i'm extra gullible with normal people, but much less so with people that have psychopathic traits. i've actually avoided people that later turned out to be criminals, but i'm not sure how i'd really test to verify and honestly i wouldn't really want to. feels terrible to be around those people.

i agree with this 100%

I thought I had affective empathy. But then, how would I know? I never knew I didn't have depth perception either until my optometrist told me. Perhaps what I feel is completely different. Perhaps I really do lack empathy: in which case I really shouldn't subject any normal people to the pain and frustration being around me must cause them. But I think if I ran away or killed myself that would hurt my family... but what do I know? I don't have empathy... not sure what I should do now...

I once thought about being a nun, but the problem is that nuns aren't like that anymore!

Hypothesis: Simon and Sacha are really the same person, and this whole autism persona is a front for Sacha's idea of reality TV.

So he never even actually said that? The media really have decided to go after us. We are the scapegoat du jour: call me paranoid, but it seems like someone made a conscious decision that it should be so.