Are people with autism borderline sociopaths?

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Personally I think it might be a bit more likely for an aspie to be a sociopath compared to a neurotypical BUT I definitely don't think that all aspies are or will become sociopaths. The autism spectrum is so broad and personalities are so different. I don't think all sociopaths are aspies either, not by a long shot.

Attributing a concept with a negative connotation out of anything but to utilise it as a tool is impossible to do without empathy (empathy describing the neutral but unavoidable ability to connect; to be able to like or dislike people and it won't simply stop unless a sort of damage or dysfunction interfere). That is what I was getting at.

Okay, trying to be clearer: if you hold (some) people in contempt or outright emotionally dislike someone, you have (some amount of) empathy. It doesn't mean you like people, it just means you are able to identify yourself with people (meaning you are able to intuitively (emotionally?) recognise without hesitation and without logical deduction that you are of the same species as them no matter whether you like it or not).

That's as good as I can sketch the mechanics without knowing them first-hand.

If you are in tune with your emotions (you know what you feel and when you feel) but don't "feel" anything towards people and you have no (emotional) impulse to form on opinion of people albeit you have (intellectually) acknowledged and are constantly aware of the fact that they're "people like yourself", then that's literally a lack of affective empathy towards people.


As far as convincing one's self of that a person is no longer a person, dehumanising someone so that they do not seem to possess the same attributes as a real person or that they are similar but less than a real person or not as good - that is something else, of course.

History proves that the most empathic people are capable of it and then capable of committing crimes involving seemingly "inhumane" potential. That's not an innate lack of affective empathy though so I mention this to make sure it's understood to be a different phenomenon.

This is on point!![/quote]

I knew somebody with Asperger's Syndrome who was a major manipulator and he had a few mental health problems and criminal charges. I can be manipulative when I want to be as well but again it depends who we're talking about.

The second quote above is accurate. Anyone can get into trouble and yes many will agree that autistic people can be criminal, the motive is different for dark triad/Antisocial pers. dis. (ASPD) and autistics. The percentage of criminals may be higher with dark triad/ASPD

Last edited by zeroed on 06 Mar 2012, 4:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yes but I'm entirely apathetic. I don't hate all these people; I'm not misanthropic as such. I just realise truths without letting emotions interfere. In this case, it's true that most people are ignorant and sheepish. That's just a fact.



I don't understand what it means to "identify with people". I can identify with some specific individuals but I do not feel, as they say, "at one with humanity" or anything like that. I feel completely separated from most people. I don't feel their emotions nor do I care about their emotions, but I can generally analyse them and work out, logically, the sort of things they're thinking, and from there I can usually work out their probable emotional state too. People are quite simple, I'm hardly bragging here - all this stuff is very easy with most subjects.



I usually have no idea what I'm feeling but, like I said, I'm purely apathetic towards near enough everyone.



Whether or not someone is a "real person" bears no meaning to me at all. Humans are sacks of meat, they bear no more intrinsic value than any other animal.

All of that makes sense for an autistic. When psychopaths claim the same thing they sound fake to me. It just occurred to me that this might be like this [link] where nonautistic atheists seem to be religious people railing against their own nature. Psychopaths seem to be fakely seeing people as fleshsacks. When I hear a psychopath talk philosophy they sound like a petulant child.

If one believes humans have no intrinsic value, and nothing is felt for the entire species, it could be defined as lack of empathy or emotional blunting. In contrast, a person with antisocial personality disorder derives happiness and giggles from hurting others. That is the difference.

Wouldn't they go hand in hand? If a psychopath/sociopath/whatever believes humans have no value and has no empathy whatsoever, then they'd have no problem f**king about with said humans, which is my understanding of what the whole thing actually is.

Taking pleasure from hurting people fits with seeming like petulant children who are just faking the antipathy. I see people, especially NTs, as like various kinds of animals (ants are a good model). But I like animals so I'm kind to NTs. You wouldn't deliberately hurt something you didn't care about. I've experimented a lot, and people got hurt, but only ever to learn, never for sadism.

Last edited by fraac on 06 Mar 2012, 4:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You can be sadistic towards someone you have no emotional response to.

Bits and pieces of your speedy but elaborate answer are totally alien to me (nevertheless an interesting read) but that does hint at that there are quite different impairments of affective empathy (or a lack, depending on the case), probably very different causes of such impairments that would (naturally?) take slightly or vastly different forms.

But that is to be assumed I guess, seeing how ASPD is not synonymous with (Hare's) psychopathy and how there's this ever on-going debate about the differences and similarities of sociopathy and psychopathy as well as about different causes of psychopathic behaviour making for differences classifications and presentations.

Sure but why would you? As I edited-in above, the only reason that makes sense to me is for learning purposes. I don't think sociopaths are very interested in learning. I think they fundamentally care, like NT atheists. Maybe this is a functional difference between sociopaths and psychopaths, where sociopaths, environmentally created, would be sadistic.

Ah, yes, that is right, the issue is:

why screw (pardon) with someone, something that holds no (positive or negative) importance and provides nothing?

No amusement, no mild entertainment, no compassion towards the victim, no excitement derived out of the action, no identification with the victim (and projections onto the victim), no instrumentation/dehumanisation of the victim... then why bother instead of reading a good book or buying sweet for the kindergarten down the street?

It goes against human nature to invest energy into something out of which there is nothing to gain. (Not counting anatomical study here... though there are enough anatomical models to refer to, really.)

Now, if there is something to gain out of it such as a sadistic pleasure, it's not as if there is no empathy at play. Yes, it would a dysfunctional form of empathy (though more likely the problem is with the sadist's emotions that "merely" affect the person's empathy) but it would still mean the basic potential of empathy is present (and possibly intact itself or underdeveloped or, or, or).

I think I just said that. The people I've known who were probably psychopaths (i.e., definitely either psychopaths or sociopaths and no apparent childhood causes) were not particularly spiteful. I need a larger data set.

Well if you're a genuine sadist without any emotional empathy, you'd find it fun regardless of the target or what your opinion of the target was. That's what makes psychopaths so "dangerous."

Normal NTs are much more likely to be sadistic than psychopaths.