Real empathy or hypocrisy?

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They say that Aspies make great doctors and paramedics because they keep calm in emergencies and don't get emotionally involved.

I think though that most NT mothers have the advantage of identifying their chidren's distress through body language and interpretation. I can't see the negative side to that.

Maybe processing emotions never overloads you.

Not me personally no. I can feel people's moods easily though. I am a nurse and a teacher, I am pretty calm

Regarding the topic: many people fake empathy. This is the origin of the phrase "two faced." Not necessarily hypocrisy but usually manipulation.

I would disagree. Such people are not faking empathy, they are faking compassion. Empathy is a totally personal, internal experience of emotional recognition which is invisible to anyone else. It is compassion which determines whether we'll use this knowledge to behave kindly, maliciously, or indifferently. Without empathy, "fakers" would have no idea which emotional strings to tug in order to manipulate people - they need to be able to imagine themselves in other's shoes so that they can predict how their actions will make people feel.

IMHO, it's the mix-up between empathy and compassion which leads to many of the unfortunate stereotypes about autistic people's emotional abilities; even to people thinking we're psychopaths (who do lack compassion, but not necessarily empathy.) It's unfortunate that the words have got muddled up in everyday language, but as Fnord said earlier, the stricter definition is useful, especially if we want to clearly refute the misconceptions that people have about us.

I get very emotionally involved in everything. Even at work right now there's conflict going on between 2 of my female colleagues, and because they both like me, I'm caught in the middle. I don't like taking sides, so I just find myself empathising with both, as I try to see the situation from both points of view, even though I'm not in the conflict. The one who started the conflict was crying, and I felt upset seeing her cry, so I comforted her. I thought that maybe she was crying because she felt guilty for starting the conflict, but I don't say that to the other party, who is angry with her for starting the conflict. In other words I just keep a low profile and avoid hurting anyone's feelings, whoever the culprit is.

My boyfriend tells me off for getting too emotionally involved in other people, but I can't help it.

I think I have empathy though it is hard to think like people who rhink in different ways. But I do think along the lines of what if it happened to me. How would I react? This maybe sympathy or empathy. I am slightly confused between rhe two as though it has been explained to me I seem to still combine them somehow in my mind.
Now I have a visual mind and I am a bit too sensitive, so I would likely be the one on rhe floor fainting if I saw someone who had an injury, as I can visually and emotionally oversympathise, and as I would tend to faint if it happened to me anyway... Well let me say what happened to my dad when he was alive as an example.
My dad had been chainsawing. He came down to the house to see if lunch was ready, but it wasn't quite ready. Instead of putting his chainsaw boots back on, he didn't think, and went back out in light canvas shoes. The chainsaw slipped and cut the tendon in his foot. I went outside (Oooh.. I am feeling funny saying this story! Grrr. Thoughts like this are the only ones which make me want to flap my hands...Grrr... Haha.) Let me continue... I went outside and saw him lying on rhe floor in the field outside the house. He saw mw and said "I've done something to my foot. Can you take a look, and I think you will need to drive me up to the hospital. Well, I didn't even get to look at his foot that day. I was also on the floor lying next to my dad fainting out! My mind caught it too visually in my imagination... So I am guessing it is empathy? Or sympathy? Haha! No idea. When my dad had said he wants me to drive him I said "Not just now dad" and I was on the floor. He said "I think we need an ambulance!"
An ambulance came instead and by then I had recovered so I think I was able to follow in the car later. Can't remember if my mum came with me or with my dad. Anyway. All I know is with medical stuff... Well. I don't think I am the one to work in casualty!

Lone replicant

Some precious lil "people" had the nerve to tell me that, "you don't care about anyone except yourself;!". Or"you need to think about someone else's perspective"



It appeared that the ass holes that told me that, "care" about a lot of people

But everyone they "care" about is similar to them. Everyone they "care" about cares about them in return


Not many people "care* about me


The speaker had a competitive advantage

That's right. They say we don't have empathy, then they practice something very different from what empathy should be.

I think a lot of Aspies have a lot of "raw" empathy and compassion - but we don't show it in socially expected ways, so most NTs just don't notice it.

I thought of it for a while...
I have a trait that enables me to efficiently manage emergencies but it's not about "not getting emotionally involved" - I rather postpone my emotional reaction for some time. Typically, I fall ill the next day after the emergency.
Hyperfocus helps in this kind of situations but the emotions still get the impact - they just don't interfere with actions.

Maybe "they" - whoever they are - confuse Asperger's with some other neurodiverse trait, shallow emotions. Shallow emotions underlay true psychopathy but there are a lot of people out there with shallow emotions and without fully blown psychopathic personality. But psychopathy has even worse press than Asperger's so I can understand why they don't try to clarify this.

I think you are right.

Is it possible that aspies diligent adherence to methodology, order and procedure makes it easier for them to deal with emergencies, and delay the emotional response till the crisis has passed? I read an article magz, can't remember the context.

My aspie friends do not react well to emergencies, actually they panic, and their deep concern for me in dire straits causes them great distress. I imagine that similar to the wide spectrum of emotional depth and reaction in allistics, the range is wide in ASD also, and is variable and individual.

Last edited by Teach51 on 13 Jun 2019, 3:40 am, edited 1 time in total.

If I was notified of an emergency 24 hours in advance I'd cope with it very well. That doesn't seem to happen... so I tend to pace up and down flapping my arms.

That's what I meant by hyperfocus. In my case it weren't methodology, order and procedure, it were patterns - mental patterns that help me understand the situation and make the best decisions. That's my mind, I'm an abstract pattern thinker.
But generally yes, an Aspie can be so focused on mechanical / procedural aspects of the situation that the emotional load is hardly noticeable to them.


Definitely yes!

- Because their way of thinking is different to ours, we can have trouble working out how their minds work. This is known as lack of empathy.

- Because our way of thinking is different to theirs, they can have trouble working out how our minds work. This is also lack of empathy.

The above mirror-image is well known as the "double empathy problem".
The following pair, however, seem rather less symmetrical; some might even say hypocritical...

- When we behave in ways which they don't understand, they should be tolerant because our way of thinking is "different".

- When they behave in ways which we don't understand, we should always assume that they are up to something.

Some people are malicious, I have no doubt about that; but assuming so by default is merely prejudice, whoever is doing it. And it's not generally a good move if you want to convince them to treat us better. Rather ironically, not being able to see this could itself be described as a lack of empathy.

It doesn't matter who the them and us are - the argument is still the same.

The main reason that there seems to be such an imbalance is simply because autistic people have more contact with non-autistic people than the other way around; by a huge margin. If 95% of people are non-autistic, then it stands to reason that 95% of the nasty people you know will also be non-autistic, all other things being equal. We don't get any choice than to be immersed in a mostly non-autistic world, but our world is a complete mystery to most people. Maybe the diagnostic manuals for autism should include; "difficult for non-autistic people to empathise with."