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amouramarie
Emu Egg
Joined: Jul 02, 2006
Posts: 7
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 Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 2:29 am Post subject: |
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| Silke wrote: |
I was only 7 when my grandma died and I could see my mum was upset and I didn't know how to react. I mean I was upset to see her upset but I wasn't "really" upset. And I didn't feel no grief at all. And even worse when my mum died I tried my hardest to react as was expected of me but I couldn't help feeling a fake. ......
Another thing is missing people i.e. not being able to see them or speak to them. It doesn't matter much to me. I have moved to england from germany some 8 years ago and left all my friends and family behind but it rarely enters my head to phone them or write or visit and when I do phone then its more because I feel it is expected and I feel guilty for not keeping in touch but fact is that I just don't need to stay in contact to know that I love people if that makes sense?! |
You are SO not alone here 
My father died a couple of years ago, and I didn't grieve. My primary emotion was awkwardness because everyone expected me to be sad. I cried only once, and that was just because my mom was crying and I felt bad for her. And even that felt fake, like I was acting out a scene expected of me. She even brought it up with me later, asking me if I was actually sad when I was crying, and I had a hard time explaining that I was only crying because she was crying, and also because I felt I should.
The not missing people thing, too. I love my mom so much it's scary, but I don't actually need to talk to her. I spent a year in Japan and only called home twice, and once was because I needed some papers faxed over. I think the other was to tell her when I was coming home. In fact, once, my niece complained about my lack of contact and I said almost exactly the same thing you said there, that I don't need to talk to someone every day to remember that I love them.
I don't need to, and I don't want to, and that has spelled death for almost every close relationship I've had. It seems like a lot of people DO need frequent contact to remember/believe that you love them, but it's a level of interaction that I can't comfortably maintain. |
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NextFact
Blue Jay
Joined: Apr 18, 2008
Age: 17
Posts: 82
Location: Northern California
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| Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 3:10 am Post subject: |
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| lol, i scored 26 out of 80 |
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matsuiny2004
Phoenix
Joined: Mar 23, 2008
Posts: 1443
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| Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 3:22 am Post subject: |
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Your Empathy Quotient (EQ) is 22 out of 80
I do not understand how most of those qustion are related to empathy 
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Belfast
Vast Ambivalence
Joined: Jul 18, 2005
Age: 35
Posts: 1717
Location: New England
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| Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 5:22 am Post subject: |
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| Woodpeace wrote: | The study Cognitive and Emotional Empathy and their Neurofunctional Correlates in Autism Spectrum Conditions which was presented at the International Meeting for Autism Research in London last week, distinguishes between cognitive empathy and emotional empathy.
Cognitive empathy is the ability to identify emotions in other people, to differentiate between emotions such as fear and sadness. Emotional empathy is the capacity to feel for other people.
The study found that autistics have trouble predominantly with cognitive empathy, and in tests score lower than neurotypicals in respect of cognitive empathy, but not emotional empathy. |
This is what I wanted to post here (in case someone else hadn't yet put link to it here), since I just read it & thought it was good stuff (unbundling, taking apart, unpacking a conflated concept).
Gestalt thread on the subject ("AS, Alexithymia, and Empathy"):
http://asdgestalt.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=2178
Which began with this link
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/31400/title/
Asperger’s_syndrome_may_not_lead_to_lack_of_empathy_
(Had to split up the above link in half because it was stretching the page when left intact).
To which I wrote:
My comment is mere speculation-I may be misinformed, since I don't know all the details of various studies.
If one sees reaction but not what triggered it (or the trigger doesn't make sense to observer), then one might not have "sympathetic" or "empathic" response in oneself. If one sees another reacting to comprehendable stimuli, that accord with one's own response patterns, one might be more inclined to react to what befalls another person. A face (or evidence of emotional state) by itself may be insufficient to invoke same reaction in me without having the entire scenario/chain of events available for me to follow along with (and possibly reach similar outcome/conclusion/resulting emotional state).
Someone just smiling or scowling is likely to confuse me-without my having notion of why (in response to what), I'm less likely to absorb/reflect that reaction (vicariously). If someone's responding to an offense (according to him/her) that doesn't bother me, I'm unlikely to "connect" or have corresponding/similar reaction to that person. Someone reacting to stimuli that I feel similarly towards is much more likely to elicit a congruent reaction in me.
I use term "control" person to indicate the "NT" or "normal" person (in contrast to the person with ASD, who is considered to be so different/unusual), however the researchers define it for purpose of studies.
So one issue is lack of (or insufficient) context/background (and, were I provided with those things, I might seem more similar to the "control" person). Other issue is lack of overlapping priorities/thresholds (in which case, you just have to find something that I do consider significant/worthy of strong response & I'll react similar to "control" person).
Thoughts ?
Next in same thread, "hesperus" posted this study-
http://www.socialbehavior.uzh.ch/teaching/semsocialneurosciencespring08/Dziobek_2007.pdf
To which I commented:
Thanks, it was good reading (though I always get confused by the statistical measurements).
There were some good lines in it-on pg.2 of article:
"Behaviors relevant to autism, such as asking inappropriate questions, represent the antithesis of conformation to societal norms. As a consequence, individuals with AS may get lower scores on empathy questionnaires, but these lower scores may simply reflect answer patterns that are less biased by social desirability rather than reflecting actual deficiencies in empathy."
(Italicization & bolding are mine).
Also, the speculation that ASD (low "cognitive" empathy & high "emotional/affective empathy) could be "opposite" of psychopathy/sociopathy (having high "cognitive" empathy & low "emotional/affective" empathy) was certainly thought-provoking, unconventional, and "outside the box".
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*"You cannot administer a wicked law impartially-it destroys everyone it touches, its violators as well as its upholders."* |
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deadpanhead
Velociraptor
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Joined: May 19, 2008
Posts: 424
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| Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 9:40 am Post subject: |
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| tharn wrote: | Wait... now that I think about this more, what exactly are we measuring here?! 
Grab the average NT, who has a every reason to believe that a randomly selected person probably thinks and feels just like him (another NT). Then ask him if he feels empathy for that person. Well duh, of course he does.
Now grab an Autistic, who is used to being surrounded by people who think and feel in a way that's alien to him. Then ask him to recognize a random stranger's emotions as just like his. Gee, he probably feels that the random person is a bit alien.
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I borrow the above as an addendum to my answer. Maybe a study of ASD parents of ASD and NT children would be eye-opening. I am just that, and i noticed a difference in 'connection' or 'feel' with each of my children right from birth. My NT felt, from the first moment, somehow distant and not 'with me' and though i adore her and we are very close, that feeling has never left. Now that she is older, she has acknowledged it also. The opposite applies to my Aspie. Being with him felt, from the first, like 'being comfortable in my own skin'. I always thought it was just a gender and/or personality thing, but maybe not? I think i'll take a poll on it. |
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j2xj2x
Deinonychus
Joined: Feb 13, 2008
Posts: 330
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| Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 11:31 pm Post subject: |
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Your score: 14
0 - 32 = low (most people with Asperger Syndrome or high-functioning autism score about 20)
33 - 52 = average (most women score about 47 and most men score about 42)
53 - 63 is above average
64 - 80 is very high
80 is maximum
ooooof; but this is interesting 
I was going to make a new topic, but I showed consideration and I did a search.
Just because I lack empathy, it doesn't make me a nasty person. I think I know right from wrong. |
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Brandon_M
Deinonychus
Joined: Jun 03, 2007
Age: 20
Posts: 326
Location: Houston, Texas
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| Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2008 12:25 pm Post subject: |
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| As an aspie, I feel I can empathize just as much as NT can. However, our brain is wired differently from NT so sometimes I wonder if the empathy we feel is a learned response for us just like communication or an imitation created within our brain. One who breaks his leg may be able to walk using crutches, but it doesn't come as natural as walking by yourself. However, walk on them long enough they become second nature. Maybe our brain creates compensation for lack thereof, if we even lack at all. |
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LostInEmulation
Penguin
Joined: Feb 11, 2008
Posts: 1275
Location: Germany
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| Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2008 12:44 pm Post subject: |
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I don't think NTs have much empathy. Like... in front of my school was a small accident just as school was over and the idiotic majority applauded.
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GENERATION 20: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment. |
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Azharia
Pileated woodpecker
Joined: Jan 05, 2008
Age: 25
Posts: 179
Location: Cork, Ireland
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| Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2008 1:11 pm Post subject: |
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Actually when I was being diagnosed with Aspergers, the lady I was seeing said that there was a scale. And that like everything else, Aspies were at one extreme or the other. Some found it very hard to empathize at all, and others did it to a degree that was abnormally high, and usually very upsetting for them.
I fall into the second category apparently. I empathise too much.
Guess it's one of the reasons I can't watch a 'true life' movie. If a story is made up, it's fine, but the minute you tell me it really happened, I get totally upset for the people involved the minute anything at ALL unpleasant happens.
I have left the room and sat outside the door in the past rather than put myself through it unnecessarily.
Wouldn't do that with a friend of course. Would be there to help and support them. But why make myself miserable for entertainment... |
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dawndeleon
Phoenix
Joined: Jul 14, 2007
Age: 32
Posts: 740
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| Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2008 1:21 pm Post subject: |
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I agree with the redhaired girl on this one. I do have empathy for others, I just dont know how to respond to it quite often. In fact, when any of my friends are upset or genuinely in pain, it affects me for days because its something i cannot fix in a tangible way for them. Emotions are just harder to read. If someone needs something i can do for them, like get them something or make them something, or solve a physical problem, I can do that. Emotionally, I have had to learn the proper response. Sometimes when someone is upset, I dont feel anything for them, but I know that I can still help them whether i feel it or not. Who doesnt know what emotional pain feels like now and then? My best service to someone is just to usually listen to them and encourage them. I just give them what i would usually want if i was in the situation. Nine times out of ten it works out right.
If we are talking about animals, then I can usually pick up how they are feeling because they are so much more honest and unable to hide their feelings. I know when a cat is in pain or even sad...(yes, it happens... just give away a momma cat's kittens once and you will know what kind of depression they can go through.)
I have felt heartbroken over many a dying old stray cat before. I still cry over the chicken i accidentally killed when i was 5 years old. To say an aspie has no empathy sounds like a description from an observing outsider. They dont know what is going on inside, and its hard to descibe it to them. |
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CMaximus
Sea Gull
Joined: Nov 04, 2007
Age: 25
Posts: 224
Location: Staring at the Sea
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| Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2008 1:22 pm Post subject: |
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A really good breakdown of empathy and how it's related to autism (At least as far as current understanding goes) can be found in a book titled:
The Essential Difference: Male and Female Brains and the Truth about Autism by Simon Baron-Cohen
The AQ, EQ and SQ tests posted by Fred54 are in there, as well as a "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" test.
In summary, Baron-Cohen establishes that all people have varying degrees of empathizing and systemizing skills, and generally says, being very deferential to not repeating past doctrines of sexism, that more often but not always females tend to be proportionately more talented at empathy, and males tend to proportionately have better skills of systemizing. Development, communication, social hierarchy and biology are all observed and considered.
And, he says people on the autistic spectrum tend to have really low empathizing abilities and, more often than not, really high systemizing skills.
It's not an overly cold, clinical assessment, either. The book shows quite a lot of reasonable (I think) inferences about internal dilemnas individuals with autism and Asperger's may face. Check it out.
Last edited by CMaximus on Mon Jun 09, 2008 2:58 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Slashdotdash
Toucan
Joined: Apr 21, 2008
Age: 19
Posts: 263
Location: UK
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| Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2008 1:31 pm Post subject: |
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| I sometimes feel empathy when i see something emotional on tv, but other times i don't. |
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marshall
Under the whirlwind
Joined: Apr 15, 2007
Age: 28
Posts: 1513
Location: North West United States
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| Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2008 4:45 pm Post subject: |
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| I got 30. I think that test is measuring a bunch of different things and lumping them together with empathy. |
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TheOneGreatBob
Raven
Joined: Jun 08, 2008
Age: 21
Posts: 103
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| Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2008 5:58 pm Post subject: |
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I feel empathy well enough, I simply can't show it that well. I always feel really embarrassed when I have to say something "mushy", so to speak, so I try to help out with my actions instead. I have always believed that actions speak louder than words.
Personally I don't think the problem is with having empathy. Most people with Asperger's simply can't relate that well to NT's and therefore can't understand their problems. It's easy to forget that just because you don't understand why it's a problem doesn't mean that it isn't bad for the other person. As long as we can realize that, I think we're alright.
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Inventor
Phoenix
Joined: Feb 16, 2007
Posts: 2840
Location: New Orleans
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| Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2008 7:48 pm Post subject: |
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I can read emotion. That is all of empathy.
What I read is they are trying for a lie that would fail in words.
What about my feelings? Someone wants more than they deserve, or to not get what they do.
Emotion to me is all manipulation.
Dogs use emotion, it is not a high art.
I have sympathy, help when I can.
My non response to emotional maniulation is what they are reading.
Empathy for the dead? How? They are having zero emotions.
Sympathy for the dead? I know just how you feel?
The Psychobabble of Feelings? |
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