Can people with aspergers manipulative others?

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I don't know about manipulation but I could still trick someone. I've done it. I can also lie but I think when I was younger I only got away with my lies because I had a diagnosis of Asperger's that my parents other people I lied to knew about. They didn't expect me to lie very convincingly at all so they were less skeptical whenever I said something.

I know of something I do that I don't think is manipulation as much as it is my own underhanded way of not answering questions. When someone asks me for my opinion on something I'll say my opinion and I'll be telling the truth while saying it in a way that suggests I don't mean it or I feel differently. I'll say yes to something with a clear lack of enthusiasm and people won't know whether I really want to do it. The truth is that I do but I don't want to admit it. Either that or I don't want people to know for sure what I really think/feel. It's confusing and my dad hates it.

No, not everyone.

Manipulating involves doing something deceptive to cause another to engage in a certain action that the manipulator believes they would not ordinarily be willing to do.

As such, it requires a certain minimum level of social cognitive ability. Theorists have said that one important milestone for communication development is 'intentionality' - a pre-intentional child engages in actions to attempt to reach their physical goal, but with no intent to communicate this goal to others because they have not yet realized that communication is possible. A person like that clearly can't manipulate anyone either.

A good example would be very young babies. When a baby cries, this tends to elicit a response of cuddling and attempting to determine the cause of distress. But babies don't cry as a deliberate attempt to elicit this reaction - instead, they cry because they are in distress and crying while in distress is instinctive. A baby won't fake crying when they aren't in distress.

But as they learn how people behave when they cry, at some point it occurs to them 'if I cry, adults come and help me'. And at that point, the child becomes capable of manipulating, because they could choose to cry when they are not particularly distressed, with the intent of causing an adult to help and comfort them.

My dog does it. Every time I get back home much later at night than she's used to, she would piss on the floor; and she does it some 2 or 3 days after that. I don't know if it's revenge or warning, but it works: next time I try to come back earlier. Conclusion: my dog has better theory of mind than me. At least, she can manipulate me much better than I can manipulate her .

I also know some cats who "punish" their owners by ignoring them for hours or even days.

I can speak from experience that yes individuals on the spectrum can be very manipulative; I know for a fact I am and so do my friends and family.

Good catch.

That's a good example, indeed, as it shows the difference very clearly. There's only one point here that bothers me a bit:
"they could choose to cry when they are not particularly distressed, with the intent of causing an adult to help and comfort them". If they need an adult to comfort them, they DO have some emotional problem. The only difference now when they are not so innocent any more is that they can choose the way they're showing their problem. For example, they know that crying in public is inappropriate, and adults expect them to suppress their emotions, but they give way to tears because otherways mummy would keep ignoring them. So, it's not about faking emotions; it's more about breaking social rules. Considering this, could we still call it manipulation?

I rarely lied to get out of trouble. What I did do was make up stories or distort facts just for the heck of it. I was kind of a story teller / BSer. I don't know why I did it but I was usually believed until there was some contradictory evidence. Then I would be really embarrassed.


I do that too, but mostly with people I don't know that well. It's some kind of shyness or insecurity I get about sharing my true opinion. I also sometimes try to lead people to something indirectly instead of coming right out and saying what I want. I attribute this kind of "manipulation" to social anxiety I have. It's really just me being passive aggressive because I have no confidence. I also answer "I don't know" all the time when I really mean "I don't want to talk about that". It never works though as people just get annoyed and persist until I come out and say "can we please talk about something different" in an exasperated tone.

I always thought dogs must have theory of mind to make their eyes look so cute and sad when they beg for food scraps. It tends to work especially well on children who don't want to finish everything on their plate. Dogs generally like foods kids don't want to finish, like green veggies.

The difference is whether they act different when someone is paying attention. I definitely did this when I had my post-meltdown "grudges" as a child. I'd be careful not to smile or respond at all to one parent for a while and go to the other parent instead to get cheered up.

Oh I see.. That's right. Strange... I don't know if I did it as a child. It's a weird thing: I remember nothing from my childhood until about 5 or 6, and very little from 6 to 11, and what I remember are mostly visual things (streets, houses, plants in smallest detail, toys, pictures in the books, my fantasies, even nightmares from 30 years ago), but very few emotions. I don't even know if I had meltdowns at all, and I have no one to ask. I vaguely remember myself "kill" my toys in a rage, but I don't remember the feeling behind it or why it happened. Could be "normal" anger as well. I remember people say I should be "less hysterical" but I don't know what they meant. Is it possible for an AS child to have no meltdowns (I mean, until teenage years)?

Anyway, I don't think I could manipulate any one by being "hysterical". I was kind of ret*d ... Looking at my child photos now, I see the same face expression everywhere, between neutral and gloomy. Once a photographer asked me to smile, but I couldn't. On the other hand, I couldn't stop smiling in some sad situations when it was inappropriate, so I couldn't control even this.

I am referring to cognitive empathy, not affective empathy. There are different types of empathy.

Thanks, that's important... I think now I know what you mean. (I think I got you wrong because you wrote "don't care" which I interpreted in terms of emotion). From what I could look up now (very briefly, sorry, too short of time), people on the autistic spectrum are believed to lack cognitive empathy, but the emotional empathy is present. (This might have to do with my experience I was writing about). If that's right, there must be a possibility to correct it, through intellectual learning, at least to a certain degree... Not that bad.

Ever see the little sprinkle faced kid on YouTube? That was me trying to lie to someone. (No Mom, I didn't eat the cupcakes. )

As with Theory of mind, you can learn most social/emotional skills cognitively where NTs learn them instinctively - it tends to take a lot longer to become as competent in them but many people can and do get there

Some people on the spectrum are actually hyper-sensitive to emotion and over-empathise which causes as many problems as not being aware of other people's feelings - if you physically feel someone else's pain or grief (some people experience this even when watching TV) then it becomes overwhelming and can lead to shut down which would look like lack of empathy.

The problem is not so much lack of empathy as not knowing what to do with the feelings - instead of the instinctive approach leading to recognition of the feelings and appropriate noises, many ASC people recognise the feelings, even know they should be responding to them, but either can't cope and run away or can't figure out what the person suffering or celebrating actually expects from them. Often they will respond later than expected, having had to figure it all out cognitively, or with something practical rather than the emotional support another NT would provide without even thinking about it, and, in NT terms, that is inappropriate and seen as uncaring.

Being unaware of feelings can mean you look uncaring too - if you have poor facial reading skills you may not even see the clues. Many people on the spectrum have a comorbid, often unrecognised, which makes them unable to read a face - prosopagnosia: a problem with the functioning of the fusiform face gyrus in the amygdala where the face is processed. All other vision is processed elsewhere, but this is face specific and means that you may have no ability to see the face at all, or partial or distorted facial vision. If you can't see the face you can't read the emotional status in it effectively so unless the emotional cues are explicit - shouting in anger, laughing with pleasure, crying with pain.... - then you can't respond because you simply don't know the emotion is present.
Prosopagnosia is present in about 2% of the general population, it is thought to be present in up to 50% of people on the spectrum although severe prosopagnosia, where there is little or no ability to see the face, is less common.

My memories of being "manipulative" are probably from the age of 7 or so. My parents say I was which is a little unusual for an autistic child. I also notice from photos that I smiled brightly as an infant and toddler but had either a deeply vacant look or fake looking smile from the age 4 on. I still cant make myself look good on camera smiling. The only facial expression I'm good at is looking gloomy or scary/pissed-off. I think the latter helped keep bullies away.

My earliest memories are probably from the age of 3. I have memories of being terrified of music. My parents couldn't take me to restaurants because I would freak out. I was also hugely picky when it came to food and clothing.

This is me. I think I've always had a more intense than usual recognition of emotion, but never figured out how to make myself respond in the expected way. I've discovered recently that I'm actually quite intuitive when it comes to recognizing conflicts and interpersonal tension from a distance but when I try to interact with people in person I tend to shut down, miss things, or react in an immature way. When someone is upset I instinctively react as if they're hostile to me. I can be intellectually aware that they're not but can't get through it for some reason. I think I have both cognitive and affective empathy to some degree but there's still a link missing in not having the right instinct in terms of my own responses to people. So in 99.9% of normal circumstances I'm the opposite of manipulative as I don't know how to deal with other people's emotions. I only get "manipulative" the 0.001% of the time when I'm in an argument, feeling pissed off, or on the defensive.