Slowly starting to realize we don't feel empathy

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They largely use empathy tests as a means of diagnosing autism...wouldn't they need to completely redefine what it means to be autistic if they took that away?

Research on empathy among women with an ASD is scant. Research samples were male dominated and they were mostly young males. It's necessary to realise that the findings of those samples can't be generalised with any validity.

Hmm, good point.

Perchance the OP is using a pluralist majestatis, a.k.a the royal we

Last edited by bunnyb on 26 Nov 2017, 3:17 am, edited 1 time in total.

I used to have trouble with this when, in reality, I thought the world expected me to have no empathy like they don't, so I was doing to please others. Which, ultimately, is what keeps the world evil. Or is it just me?

As sick as I am of everyone digitally screaming in outrage whenever anyone dares to suggest autism may contribute to a lack of empathy, blanket denying any correlation and insisting that it makes no difference, when autistics like me actually do exist?
I think the question suffers from a lack of clarity - that in some people autism does indeed cause problems in this area, but not in everyone. Also that autistic alexithymia exists, and this can produce the same result. There's nuance here, not a standardized answer.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/auti ... d3fe237413

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... -empathy1/

http://blog.theautismsite.com/empathy-myth-study/

As I have said previously in this thread, more recent research on autism and empathy is out there and not hard to find. Google is your friend, as they say.

Yeah well, people often say that I lack empathy, but to me it looks like those who say it lack it, too. In reality it's probably just about different experiences; while I can sympathise with them, I sometimes can't empathise because I've never been in the same or even similiar situation. However, even more often than that I end up in a situation where an NT is unable to emphatise with me, and I assume it's for the same reasons. The reason its us autistic people who are said to lack empathy more than an average NT is because we are a minority and so there are less people with similiar experiences to us than there are for NTs.

"However, people with autism do have a reduced sense of what’s called theory of mind. That means they have trouble perceiving the emotions and thoughts of others. But this does not mean they don’t care about people or have empathy for them."

Doesn't empathy require the ability to perceive the emotions and thoughts of others? I kind of get some of what they're saying in these articles, but I feel like they're using very broad definitions here (or maybe, being on the spectrum, I am taking definitions too literally), and I think the main point they are trying to make is that Autistic people are not cold-blooded, immoral, unfeeling monsters.

I feel like caring about people, having emotions, and having empathy are not all the same thing. If someone told me their father died, I would feel bad for them, but I couldn't begin to imagine how they actually feel.

But as B19 pointed out, it very well could be a male versus female thing. Those articles make no mention of gender study (I don't have time to fact check their sources).

Either way, this thread's getting a little too hot for me.

Last edited by SabbraCadabra on 26 Nov 2017, 5:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

Sociopathy is a character defect. Autism is not.

Autism is not the only condition where empathy is impaired, it is in brain damage, schizophrenic spectrum disorders, a few subtypes of bipolar, some forms of dementia like Pick's disease especially.

If it makes you feel better, yes we do lack empathy, but that doesn't mean we lack sympathy or emotions.
Empathy is not a concrete thing, a person lacks it if they do not demonstrate it. A person can not BE ABLE TO PERFORM THE ACTION of empathizing for a multitude of reasons. In autism I suspect it's from a problem with cognition, coherance, and information, possibly blunted emotional effect from growing up in some cases like mine which can be psychological, not neurological. Not out of a character defect.

Why exactly though is the focus just on autism? Maybe because the social view has added a moral component, if it were left to the medical view of it being a disorder to be treated or researched/worked on, then maybe there would be a lot less harping on about this one trait (not a symptom as empathy is not a concrete feeling like hunger) would not be so focused on.

Maybe also not letting it define you can also get more sympathy from other people, but ah well too many people want to let it define them.

Me: You’re carastrophizing over the girl you’ve been posting about.

Everybody else ignores this...the thread deteriorates into bickering about empathy, who has it, who doesn’t, and how anyone can even know if somebody has or doesn’t have empathy. Mergh

So, I’m catjacking this thread

Again, everyone is different. Everyone has a different view of what empathy actually means. It's going to be hard to find consensus in this topic.

Personally, I'm pretty sure I don't feel empathy. I understand what it is supposed to be, but outside of its actual definition, I don't have any real concept of what it's like to experience it.

I've learned sympathy, and how to look sympathetic, but if someone is grieving for example, I've never felt any connection to their emotion at all. Same with joy, elation or whatever. I've never 'shared' an emotional experience.

I had a lengthy discussion about the difference between sexual intercourse and 'making love' with an NT friend the other day. She said making love is a shared, deeply emotional feeling, where both people are sharing the same moments of love and elation. I have no understanding of how a human could possibly share an internal emotion with another person, but like I said to her, I don't feel bad, I've never experienced anything like that, so I don't miss it.

I'm not sure what that tells anyone, other than how I feel about the subject.

This thread seems to have become a Tic-Tac-Toe stalemate.

Nah, I don't think that all NTs have good empathy. It's more like some of them are able to put up a front of being empathetic when it's socially appropriate, but don't bother to do so when there will be no social consequences (for example, when the person getting picked on is unpopular).

OP: So you're saying that your inability to instinctively tell what others are feeling has caused you trouble? Maybe try telling people to be upfront with you about their feelings so you don't miss their emotional cues. That might only work with people close to you, though.

Saying "we are completely unable to feel empathy" is like a dyslexic saying about all dyslexics "we are completely unable to read or write". Both false statements. Dyslexic people can actually read and write, just like autistics can feel empathy. If a dyslexic person cannot read or write, it doesn't mean that person needs to speak for all the rest of the dyslexic people on the planet.

How many problems do ALL Autistics have? Is there any issue that you can rightfully say that if Tom, Dick, and Harry are autistic, then all three must have a problem with the issue since they are Autistic?