AS vs Sociopath

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All is in the title

According to you, is an aspie a sociopath or is a sociopath an aspie?
In other words, do you think that there could be a link?

My own point of view is that an aspie is a sociopath but all the sociopaths are not aspies...
I'm interested in your viewpoints.

Thx
Take care

Sociopaths experience a limited range of emotions and have an inability to perceive other individuals as sentient beings. They have no conscience and feel no remorse for their actions, yet frequently an ability to present as a caring, charismatic, upstanding member of the community.

How does this sound like someone with AS?

People with AS usually have a wide range of emotions, usually actually don't lack empathy....they just have tendency to miss cues telling them they should be empathetic in the situation, or are mis-understood and then accused of being uncaring, usually have a conscience...often stronger than NT's, usually feel remorse for their actions, and generally aren't charismatic or prominent in their community.

I'm about 2/3s of the way to being a sociopath AS all the way though

The two have nothing to do with each other. Where do you get this stuff?

Good question right there. ^^

Sociopaths don't know, understand and can't tell the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, what is acceptable to society and what isn't.

None of those things are even mentioned in the DSM description of AS.

I have had a few other discussions with the OP and I am always left wondering if his questions are due to a certain type of low functioning (in which case I want to explain things in a certain way) or if he is trolling (in which case I don't want to take the bait).

Sociopaths and psychopaths can be very excellent at reading people...body language, facial expressions and context. They will feel little to no guilt while they screw over other people. I have no idea why you decided to connect sociopathy with autism, unless out of pure ignorance. For sooth.

no, i don't know where you got that information. Im guessing because before aspergers was called aspergers it was called autistic psychopathy. in that time psychopathy meant a personality disorder that caused social problems. not severe antisocial pd like it defines today. it is possible for someone to have both but most aspies are not sociopaths. someone with both would probablly not be able to manipulate people well like a normal sociopath. they would probablly be good at doing something like being a theif or serial killer. if there is a possible link it could be that both aspies and sociopaths are very likely to have adhd. %62.5 of people with aspergers have adhd and aproxmentally 25% of people with adhd are sociopaths. that would mean 15.625% of aspies are sociopaths which is higher than normal statistics being about %2 of the population. Also anyone who has one psychological condition, is likely to have other ones.

One of the biggest misconceptions about autism is that we can not feel compation for other people. It is because most people think empathy=compation/sympati. And usually we suck at empathy. But empathy means ability to, for exempel, read body language and facial expression. It is also a misconception that sociopaths cannot feel empathy, they are usually exalent at reading people and that's why they are so good manipulators. But they cannot feel compation.

That is a little too simplistic as you assume an equal distribution of sociopaths across both ADHD and NT populations, and ignoring the increased co-morbidity of ADHD in Aspies, but I get your point

Empathy is not defined as feeling the same as another (that’s codependency), but rather the ability to hear what another is saying and to tell them that you heard.

They are not related. I met one of these people, he wasn't a pleasent character but I believe most personalities come in two types: The benign and the malignant. I recommend you get a book Emotional Vampires by Bernstein, it talks about different personality types. We are paranoid personalities and are totally different to the antisocials we call sociopaths. Antisocials love parties, contrary to popular myth. They sit around pacing in everyday life, controlling their longing for excitement and danger. The use anything they can to get this excitement: Drugs, alcohol, performing in a band, skydiving, whatever gives them the thrill. They laugh at other people because they think they are suckers for having a conscience.

I've noticed on here that perhaps people get emotional blindness mixed up with not actually caring for or loving other people. We're not like that, it's just that other people need to understand that we don't always know what's going on and that it isn't something which can easily be corrected.

Sociopaths have low affective empathy and high cognitive empathy; aspies have low cognitive empathy and can have high affective empathy.

Then, sociopath and AS are almost polar opposites.

Actually, technically that's "mirroring." Empathy actually does involve feeling, or at least identifying with the feelings of others. It is the ability to articulate that fact, and/or "vicarious experience" (or ~ basically the same as "feeling the same as another") of the emotions, attitudes or attitudes of another. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/empathy

In the AS criteria for AS, what is mentioned is "emotional reciprocity." It's been debated here on WP whether that's the same thing. Some disagree that it is.

I feel it's the same, or at least closely enough related, which explains why the term empathy is so often used in relation to AS.

The actual term "Empathy," however, isn't in the AS criteria of DSM-IV.

The phraseology is "lack of social or emotional reciprocity."

This has been studied: Autistic people show an understanding and belief in right and wrong, if they understand the social situation well enough to know that a wrong occurred. Sociopaths don't care about right and wrong, the core trait is lack of a conscience. Autistic people have consciences too of they're not also sociopaths.

That's just an old quote I like. Not really a scientific observation