Are people with autism borderline sociopaths?

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i have too much empathy but often it is misguided and misplaced and poorly expressed. i get overwhelmed by emotions very easily so i often try to avoid situations that generate empathy when i can't do anything useful with my feelings (i.e. watching the news).

sociopaths (ASPD) have a lack of remorse/shame/guilt, which is distinctly different from a lack of empathy. they understand people's emotions but either disregard or take advantage of them. they are pathological liars, whch aspies may or may not engage in (but are less likely overall). they are not capable of falling in love, but most aspies can (as far as i can tell).

in fact, i would sorta wonder... if an aspie had these characteristics... couldn't they have comorbid autism spectrum disorder and ASPD? don't see why not.

I find the majority of people don't have a tremendous amount of empathy, unless most people have selective empathy.

It's a very bad mistake you are making. The problem is, you should not take whats wroten LITERALLY. What they are trying to describe with the word "empathy" is that they lack "theory of mind" (something about difficulty understanding what others are thinking and feeling). Maybe you could say it is a form of (lacking) empathy. You say "and lack of empathy is the corner stone of sociopathy". But they DONT have the cornerstone of sociopathy more than you. The problem with sociopathy is they have no conscience and guilt about other people. There could be a situation where the sociopaths exploits an other person and the person is hurt, but they dont CARE. They can clearly see the other person is hurt and what goes on in their mind (thats having "theory of mind", what they in the paper call "empathy"), but depite of that they exploit and hurt them and they have no guilt and feeling of caring about them. Thats ALSO called empathy, but autistics have that. There could be a situation where an autistic could'nt see something was wrong, because they did'nt understand what happened in the other persons mind, but that is out of not UNDERSTANDING. Then the person explains it and suddenly they get very sorry for the other person, because they can feel the other person and care. As long as they can see something they care and feel what an other person feels as much as you do.

So the sociopath have good empathy and at the same time bad empathy?
And the autistic have good empathy and at the same time bad empathy?

The explanation here is that "empathy" is just a word for describing something, thats how words function, a word can mean to different things at the same time. But here empathy is describing both one thing and at the same time a completely different thing. Thats the mistake. But it is easy to misunderstand it, if you dont know much about it, because you just think what you normally think about the word "empathy". So it is not because im angry i'm saying this, i'm just explaining it, so you dont misunderstand it.

Another word for what an autistic lack is: Cognitive Empathy or Theory of mind. But a sociopath usually has this.

Another word for what an sociopath lack is: Affective Empathy. But an autistic usually has this.

I have empathy and I think that occasionally I express it too strongly, sometimes people think that I care more about their problems than I actually do. When that happens, I don't want to upset them by telling them that I don't care that much, and I don't want to mislead them by pretending to care more than I do

Everything you've read?

You haven't read enough then.

Autism and Sociopathy are completely different.

Keep reading.

This may help:

One MAJOR difference between the two involves conscience.

Sociopaths tend to lack it.

Autistics tend to have overactive consciences.

Read more.

hi,

my boss is a clear sociopath, and its a completely different story, although there might be some superfluous commonalities:

- sociopaths manipulate and abuse others and therefor have good body language skills (e.g. use loud voice, use eyes, prestigious clothing)<-> autistics are rather bad at manipulating others

- sociopaths want power and attention at all costs and achieve high social status by power plays <-> autistics are rather sensitive persons, and don't need this more than other NTs, and many try to behave very ethically.

in short:
Sociopaths look nice and gentle to the outside (they just play it, to manipulate), but are not nice, autistics look as if not nice (e.g. they don't do eye contact and this is interpreted as sth. bad by NTs), but are nice

bye,
anton

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No - absolutely not.

Sociopaths are very skilled socially, used to manipulating people and situations to get their own way without any sense of guilt or concern to the people they are using. They are manipulative liars.

Aspies/Auties tend to be poorly skilled socially - unable to work out what other people are thinking or to read their emotions. Even so they generally tend to have a very high regard for honesty, loyalty and moral values including compassion and concern for other peoples wellbeing.

They do not make convincing liars.

So I think you are entirely wrong in what you suggest.

Why can't people get it? People with AS or autism do NOT lack empathy. The problem (for me anyway) is that I find it difficult to empathise with people in real time.

Example: If somebody came to me upset and worried, I would probably go blank emotionally but would still be able to help them. But later, when I am alone thinking about it, I would imagine how they would have been feeling at that time.

So we do have empathy, the problem is we are too late in having empathy.

We are not sociopaths, because to be a sociopath you would need a very clear and able Theory of Mind. Sociopaths are people who manipulate others and take delight in it.

I am VERY empathetic. Overly so; to the point where I feel my eyes welling up every time I hear or see something depressing/sad, or feel my heart exploding from happiness whenever I hear something positive or cute/adorable etc. Then again, I may just be crazy.

I have too much empathy for other people that I always forget how I feel, which means I let myself be walked all over and took advantage of, since I spend all my life trying to avoid letting others down.

When I know that someone is suffering, it bothers me greatly, and I feel for and with them. When I say suffering, I mean pain, be it emotional or physical. The trouble is knowing when someone is not doing well and I cannot see it, but tells me everything is okay, or that I am not causing them discomfort when I am. I would say that I just fail to empathize cognitively.