Autism and Empathy
A common description of autistic people is that they are incapable of empathy, and this is often reflected in the popular media as meaning that autistic people are incapable of compassion as well. Anyone who takes time to read the extensive amount of writing by autistic people online and off can see that these characterizations are overly simplistic and do not remotely approach the truth.
Indigo Jo posted a criticism of Simon Baron-Cohen’s recent book, Zero Degrees to Empathy (called The Science of Evil in the US), which describes four conditions that he describes as lacking empathy:
I recently got hold of two books by Simon Baron-Cohen which focus on the subject of empathy. The earlier, The Essential Difference, focusses on the difference in empathy and systemising between men and women; the more recent (published this year) is titled Zero Degrees of Empathy (the American edition is called The Science of Evil) and is about specific disorders that involve impaired empathy, in which he includes autism, Asperger’s syndrome, borderline personality disorder, psychopathy and narcissism. The first two he calls “zero-positive”, meaning that they have worthwhile qualities, while the last he calls “zero-negative”, meaning they have nothing to recommend them and lead to self-harm, social alienation and anti-social behaviour. He also posits the idea of the autistic brain being the “extreme male brain”, an idea first advanced by Hans Asperger in 1944 but only translated into English in 1991. His ideas have offended a lot of people within the autistic community, particularly women with autism who object to being described as more male than most men, as well as some who say that their empathy is much more highly developed than Baron-Cohen gives them credit for. Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg has been one of his most articulate critics from this camp and you can read her views here: [1], [2], [3], [4].
Much more, of course, at the link.
One thing about that post that gets me is the quote from Simon Baron-Cohen in which he dismisses autistic criticisms of his work by saying that the people who criticize it are simply not autistic enough to be representative. This is fairly typical of many researchers, who find it more important to impose their own models on autistic thought and behavior, and ignore what autistic people have to say about their thought and behavior.
I’ve never particularly been fond of the “extreme male brain” theory, as it arbitrarily defines certain traits (systemizing) as being inherently male and other traits (empathizing) as inherently female (and as far as I understand, there is not sufficient evidence to support this) . Indigo Jo’s post above and Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg’s new site (below) go into great depth on this topic and explain what is wrong with it.
Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg of Journeys with Autism has also recently started a new blog called Autism and Empathy: Dispelling Myths and Breaking Stereotypes (quoted from this post on Journeys With Autism):
In light of the prevailing mythology that autistic people lack empathy, and in response to the damage that this stereotype does to our lives and to our psychological well-being, I’ve created a new website.
Autism and Empathy: Dispelling Myths and Breaking Stereotypes exists to undo the myths about autism and empathy that have stigmatized autistic people for so long.
It will feature writing by autistic individuals, by autism parents and family members, and by others who understand that autistic people all along the spectrum experience the world in highly empathetic and sensitive ways. Telling our stories, describing our experiences, and speaking the truth in our own voices, we can break dehumanizing stereotypes and increase understanding.
I welcome all submissions, including previously published work. Please submit your piece or a link to your work to rachel@autismandempathy.com.
If you have a blog, help spread the word! Provide a link to the Autism and Empathy website, and post an announcement. Together, we can make a difference.
Also, for the record, I am on the autistic spectrum.
Edit to add: I do know some autistic people do in fact report lacking affective empathy. One thing I’ve seen Amanda Baggs point out is that autistic people can tend to extremes – having a really strong trait or not having it at all, and this seems consistent. In this context, I should clarify that a significant part of my issue with Simon Baron-Cohen is his universalizing of things like “lack of empathy” and “lack of theory of mind” as core deficits in autism when even by his own research they are far from universal. Also, both tend to be very poorly explained and misunderstood and misreported by the media, as well as being taught to future professionals in ways that dehumanize autistic people.
I have no empathy. It is true.
poiuy trewq
29 Jun 11 at 5:36 pm
Autistic trans chick here, I have SERIOUS problems with empathy, plenty of sympathy though.
However I screw up empathy on an incredible scale most of the time and end up trying to logically work through the correct behaviours for a situation.
99% of the time when stuff happens around me I’d say I feel nothing about it but ‘fake’ an emotional reaction anyway to make others feel better.
Samantha
29 Jun 11 at 8:23 pm
My issue is like,
there’s a lot I’d like to say about this but I wasn’t able to go into a lot of detail for various reasons. I have a lot of issues with the way Baron-Cohen frames these concepts.
I am sensitive/vulnerable to other people’s emotions, but I don’t always know how to respond to them, and what I do know is scripted. Some things that people expect to typically invoke an emotional reaction leaves me feeling nothing at all, and I have to work out what I am supposed to do in order to appear “normal” in situations where I don’t want to appear cold and heartless.
And sometimes the hypersensitivity itself makes it difficult for me to do much because all I want to do is get away from the emotions.
Lisa Harney
29 Jun 11 at 8:34 pm
Yep. I am extremely empathetic, and also extremely unable to react in socially-expected ways without resorting to a scripted response, or worse, clamming up because I’m afraid that anything I say will make the situation worse. People interpret that as my lacking empathy.
Similarly, the trope that autistic people supposedly have a “flat affect” is bullshit. When I tell people that I sometimes react in a sudden, over-emotional way to events, they will deny that I’m autistic because autistic people are supposed to be blank-faced all of the time.
And this “extreme maleness” crap is all we autistic trans women need, is for transphobic-misogynist radfems to use this as another means to slander us. “Ah hah! Autistic! Male energy! Don’t say I didn’t tell you!”
I will admit to having very little empathy for Simon Baron-Cohen, though, considering his “science” is frakkin’ crap.
GallingGalla
29 Jun 11 at 8:55 pm
I’m often called cold and a little heartless and insensitive to people. Honestly for me it’s often true. I rarely react emotionally to stuff and when I do it’s only barely there.
I’m a little envious to be entirely honest, I’d love to feel more in general.
This is the interesting thing about spectrumites, we rarely are as similar as we expect to be and many of us have very different experience of being ‘autistic’.
I have essentially zero ‘theory of mind’ and can’t read people at all. (26 years old still working on basic social skills and eye contact, still stim etc.)
I’m a pretty ‘severe’ case though apparently.
What I’m trying to say is, I often agree with Cohen’s opinions on theory of mind (though not on his ‘male brain’ bs.’
Samantha
29 Jun 11 at 8:56 pm
It seems like, as trans people, we’re actually really well positioned to put the last nail in the coffin of the “extreme male brain” theory. We know what having a male or female brain does, inasmuch as you can really gender any body part: it makes you a boy or a girl.
Saying that autistic people have an “extreme male brains” is contradicted by the fact that women can be autistic.
TalieC
29 Jun 11 at 9:14 pm
Hmm, my issue with “theory of mind” is stuff like – oh, I’ve heard professionals say that autistic people are incapable of perceiving other people as anything but objects, which is, I think, inaccurate. I mean, I admit I sometimes react to people as if they’re furniture, but I am certainly aware that they are not furniture or objects.
I don’t really know what my theory of mind is like (as in, I lack a frame of reference and my therapist keeps blocking my attempts to process this). I know my social imagination is pretty flat and barely present at best. I really have a terrible time predicting what other people are thinking or how they might react to particular situations unless I have seen them react to that specific situation before. I definitely have problems seeing other people’s perspectives (although I am willing to accept what people say about themselves as true).
My emotional responses are actually pretty limited, and my capacity to explain my emotions is not very strong. Being around some strong emotions makes me extremely uncomfortable, and I’m not really able to respond to them properly without working out the appropriate response.
I actually still do stim, and I’m in my early 40s. Is that unusual? I didn’t even realize it was stimming until I researched it.
I definitely have flat/muted affect. I do smile and laugh, but I sometimes do those at inappropriate (although not always rude) moments, and when I’m angry, I don’t think I show much at all.
I don’t really know how severe I am. the most feedback I’ve had from a professional was “you seem to have an extreme need for routine” and “You’re hard to read.”
As for reading people, I’m not really sure. I’ve been trying to work that out without much success. I do know that I have no idea what people mean by “the uncanny valley,” although I’m not sure that’s relevant.
And yeah, I think it’s really difficult to justify “extreme male brain” in the context of all the other human diversity – such as trans women and cis women who are happy being women. Also, how Baron-Cohen focuses so much on how autistic women vary from expected gender norms but not so much on how autistic men do.
Lisa Harney
29 Jun 11 at 9:22 pm
According to Baron-Cohen himself, only 50 percent of women have a female brain. He still insist on using the term “female brain”. That says it all, in my opinion.
@Samantha: “99% of the time when stuff happens around me I’d say I feel nothing about it but ‘fake’ an emotional reaction anyway to make others feel better.”
All right, so you are not good at reading body language, the pitch of the voice and all the other obscure signs the rest of us use to get a sense of a person’s true feelings.
Still, you do “fake” an emotional reaction to make others feel better. Why would you do that, if you feel no love or sympathy for others?
Jack Molay
30 Jun 11 at 1:16 am
She said in the first comment that she has plenty of sympathy.
Lisa Harney
30 Jun 11 at 1:38 am
Sigh. I wrote a much longer comment but OpenID went into some kind of loop and lost it.
Anyway, I am sick of the way this society dehumanizes neurominorities. I am angry. And everyone should be angry.
I don’t know if I am Aspie, but I always got along well with Aspies. If anyone seems incapable of empathy, it is the neurotypical supremacists. It is the people who judge others by eye contact, facial expression and tone of voice. Or by aura, it all seems equally dubious to me,
Marja Erwin
30 Jun 11 at 10:57 am
“If anyone seems incapable of empathy, it is the neurotypical supremacists”
Damned right. I lost job opportunities (software development) that I was technically qualified for, to people who, according to a recruiter, “knew how to wow them”. I lost out to snazzy sales pitches, because the frakkin’ enties (NTs, neurotypicals) are more interested in being “wowed” than they are in technically competent autistic people. G-d forbid the enties should have to accommodate us a bit.
Between being trans, non-binary, and autistic, I may as well be a Cylon.
Sorry for the rant, folks, but I am more than a little pissed.
GallingGalla
30 Jun 11 at 10:57 pm
“Still, you do “fake” an emotional reaction to make others feel better. Why would you do that, if you feel no love or sympathy for others?”
I can’t speak for Samantha, but for myself, I fake a reaction because that’s how I was socialized by society, including quite heavily by my parents. It’s part of NT supremacism, that *we* autistic / on-the-spectrum people have to make NT people comfortable. It’s drilled and pounded into our heads from day one. It’s called internalized ableism.
And I for one don’t appreciate the victim-blaming tone of your question, Jack. (Not to mention that your question is inaccurate, since Samantha clearly indicated that she *does* feel sympathy. Go back and read her comment.)
GallingGalla
30 Jun 11 at 11:05 pm
OT: but I read the author’s name as “Sacha Baron-Cohen” and was very confused as to why he’d write a book about Autism.
sebastianbound
30 Jun 11 at 11:19 pm
Sacha Baron-Cohen is Simon Baron-Cohen’s cousin, actually.
Lisa Harney
1 Jul 11 at 12:22 am
I have been thinking about this stuff recently. (I have never been diagnosed with autism or Asperger’s, but I have many Aspie symptoms. Took the online test and scored “high normal.”)
I agree that a lot of the things people say about the autism spectrum just doesn’t ring true to me. As for the empathy thing: there are many examples of “normal” people lacking empathy. Anywhere on the Internet you can find people saying incredibly un-compassionate things. Are all those people Aspies?
Another example: like many people, I was teased in school for being socially awkward. The kids who teased us were definitely lacking in empathy. And yet we’re the ones who get labeled “lacking in empathy.” What about them?
LDR
1 Jul 11 at 9:45 am
PS (because my first comment wasn’t long enough): I find it easy to feel empathy for groups of people, for people in the abstract, but when confronted with individuals I often shut down.
LDR
1 Jul 11 at 9:48 am
I have no issues with empathy, if anything I’m too empathetic for my own good, same with sympathy, but what I cannot divine is other peoples intent or desires. I used to default to assuming that other people are fundamentally nice and only hurt others by accident, but having been targeted by a couple of very manipulative and hurtful people over the past decade or so I’m now far more cautious about opening myself to people.
I’m very good at dealing with a situation in an entirely practical manner, doing first aid instead of freaking out for instance, and I do offer help where I can furnish it, but with not being able to percieve what other people want (as opposed to need), I’m usually at a loss as to how I should respond to emotional situations.
Most of my social awkwardness as a child (and even now) came from being bullied and teased relentlessly (for reacting in a socially inappropriate manner generally), the more I was bullied the more awkward I became, to the point that I stopped reacting immediately and considered my response – so yeah, scripting or not reacting at all became my default in fairly early childhood.
I’m plenty empathetic, but I don’t trust neurotypicals – especially when ‘learned doctors’ write things like this.
ps. The only reason I first read this guys theories was cos I got the Baron-Cohen’s mixed up
Em
1 Jul 11 at 5:43 pm
The problem with the empathy thing is:
* It’s very obviously not unique to autism (and even Baron-Cohen goes over other conditions that can cause problems)
* In relation to autistic people, it is frequently misrepresented as all kinds of things and interpreted as a lack of compassion.
I probably should have quoted Rachel’s description of cognitive empathy versus affective empathy. The former is generally difficult for autistic people (working out what other people are thinking, how they will react to what you say/do, etc), and the latter is often (not necessarily always) the same or more sensitive than it is with NTs.
Lisa Harney
1 Jul 11 at 5:44 pm
This is true for me too. I’m usually calling 911 while people are still processing that there may be a need to call 911. Also taking other appropriate action.
Lisa Harney
1 Jul 11 at 5:46 pm
Is there some connection between autism spectrum and transsexualism? I have no idea why there would be. I ask only because I had never heard of Asperger until I first logged into a transgender forum, and then suddenly it seemed the term “Asperger’s” was on everyone’s lips. Since then I keep seeing autism spectrum topics heavily discussed in trans environments but not so much elsewhere. This may be nothing more than confirmation bias, because I look at online trans communities a lot. But is there any connection between the two in particular? Or just coincidence?
Hypatia
2 Jul 11 at 10:36 am
Hypatia: In my personal experience, there seems to be such a connection. Many of the trans folk that I know are on the spectrum. Also, there seems to be a higher percentage of trans folk, aspies, and aspie trans folk in info tech / web development / software development.
However, this may be confirmation bias on my part, which is why I used the word “seems”.
GallingGalla
2 Jul 11 at 3:42 pm
Oh, well:
There was a study:
Lisa Harney
2 Jul 11 at 4:06 pm
Long time reader, first time commenter here.
I was just writing up a post about neurodiversity in general, for my own blog, and I came to QT to use it as a reference about trans* stuff, so it was deliciously ironic when I came here and saw a post about autism and empathy instead. :P
I occupy a sort of unusual role in the autism/empathy discussion because I’ve been diagnosed with Asperger’s *and* I have zero affective empathy. Which places me squarely in Baron-Cohen’s “good non-empath” category, not that that makes his “good non-empath”/”bad non-empath” dichotomy any less offensive to me. As far as I’m concerned, his work is a steaming pile of crap. But anyway…
I think it would be pretty sweet if, in addition to dispelling the myth that autistic people all lack empathy, we could also dispel the myth that lacking empathy is something we should be stigmatizing in the first place! I have lots more to say about that, but I said most of it on my blog, so I’ll let you read that if you’re interested: http://www.elidupree.com/main/posts/52-neurodiversity
- Eli Dupree
Eli Dupree
3 Jul 11 at 2:54 am
Totally.
Lisa Harney
3 Jul 11 at 3:07 am
Thanks for your answers. I took a couple of online tests that place me as solidly neurotypical. Then I had to face doubts of am I really trans then? What’s more, in my personal evolution, it was during the past several years, as I came to accept my being trans, and went ahead and transitioned, that my empathic gifts deepened and increased. It all gets confusing. To be trans means to have people around one always judging one as inauthentic by all kinds of arbitrary criteria. Attacks from all sides that one is either too much this or not enough that, and one always comes up short in other people’s judgments. One comes to anticipate the blows and cringe from them habitually, even when no blows are forthcoming…. or is that the abuse survivor in me talking… I’ve been in therapy recently finding it hard to separate out the trauma of being raped and abused from the trauma of growing up trans.
Hypatia
3 Jul 11 at 7:21 am
I think some of the problem is that NTs who aren’t educated on the subject confuse the way that psychiatrists use the word “empathy” with the way that the public uses the word “empathy.” My brother might have trouble reading people (psychiatrist-empathy), but he cares deeply about me (general-public-empathy). I am perfectly willing to place the blame for this squarely on the shoulders of psychiatrists; like most scientists they are either unwilling or unable to use the same words that the general public does, in the same way that the general public does.
Sky
3 Jul 11 at 3:26 pm
Yes, I think that is a big part of the problem. I also think that Baron-Cohen plays into that perception (especially with the book Indigo Jo reviewed).
Lisa Harney
3 Jul 11 at 11:30 pm
[...] which exposes a couple of the atrocity stories which Baron-Cohen uses to spice up Zero Degrees, Questioning Transphobia.)I bought The Essential Difference in an attempt to understand the ideas behind Zero Degrees, but [...]
Simon Baron Cohen, autism and empathy | Indigo Jo Blogs
4 Jul 11 at 11:43 am
Sky– thanks for explaining that about the two different meanings of the word… I never knew that… and it clears up a lot.
Hypatia
4 Jul 11 at 2:49 pm
“I think some of the problem is that NTs who aren’t educated on the subject confuse the way that psychiatrists use the word “empathy” with the way that the public uses the word “empathy.” My brother might have trouble reading people (psychiatrist-empathy), but he cares deeply about me (general-public-empathy).”
I’m certain most neurotypical people meld the two together. My father, for instance, is under the impression that because I’m not that good at reading people and my responses can be flat or ‘off’ that I lack empathy for the person or in general, whatever situational context is causing a disturbance. At least, I’m assuming the ‘lacking empathy’ is the reason he keeps reiterating that I don’t feel things like other people. Granted, he generally does that to reiterate my behavior (how I come off to other people) to myself (usually when I’m trying to talk myself into doing something with other people I’m not capable of, like acting neurotypical for long periods of time to, say, work in customer service, waitstaff, et cetera) – and while I know what he’s doing, mixing them up isn’t helping.
A.W.
12 Jul 11 at 12:37 am
Yeah, that sounds familiar.
To be fair, there are a lot of emotions I don’t seem to feel like other people, and my reactions to other people’s emotions are not necessarily like NT reactions, even when I’m feeling them.
That’s not to say I don’t care about people when my reactions are not typical, but it does mean that occasionally people assume that I do not.
Some things that it seems to me people take for granted seem to take up a lot of energy for me to do.
Lisa Harney
12 Jul 11 at 1:45 pm
it’s been hinted at already, but it would be really neat if this conversation could analyze the ways that the good non-empath v bad non-empath relies in its entirety on nuerotypicalist psychomedical models that paint demonized pictures of what the lived experience of non-emapthy might be for said persons (ie: not always doom-and-gloom)
~someone with “antisocial personality disorder”
anon
17 Jul 11 at 8:02 pm
“it’s been hinted at already, but it would be really neat if this conversation could analyze the ways that the good non-empath v bad non-empath”
That’d be interesting, but I’ve yet to hear of anyone describing a ‘good’ non empath. By its very definition nt people describe it as a Bad Thing.
A.W.
20 Jul 11 at 10:53 am
@Lisa,
“To be fair, there are a lot of emotions I don’t seem to feel like other people, and my reactions to other people’s emotions are not necessarily like NT reactions, even when I’m feeling them.”
Entirely serious question; How do you know that you don’t seem to feel like other people? I’ve never understood that bit. Since I don’t know what emotion or combination thereof other people are feeling inside their heads I’ve no reference to adequately compare on a scale their emotional states and mine. Is this a question that’s answerable?
A.W.
20 Jul 11 at 10:58 am
I know it’s not expressed like other people and at times I think it’s not felt like other people due to descriptions and reactions and expectations.
Anyway, I did say “I don’t seem to feel” rather than “I definitely don’t feel” because I don’t know for sure, I just know my reactions tend to vary from typical expectations.
Lisa Harney
20 Jul 11 at 12:14 pm
No worries, I just never quite understood others’ descriptions, expectations and reactions as well as I’d like, so I was wondering how one went about being able to tell if their own experiences were typical. I’ve gotten better on guessing others reactions and expectations to things, but others’ descriptions still elude me in general. I just figured if my reactions aren’t read easily by others then other people may not read reactions in general easily either, particularly considering the sheer amount of miscommunication nt people have with each other. Thought the whole damn mess was normal until, roughly, high school graduation. I make more than enough mistakes trying to figure out others’ emotional states by their own reactions and descriptions, can’t usually compile information for the general population past basic cues in that area, like tears. Childhood didn’t help with backround for guessing emotional states, granted, which might be part of my problem in that area. It ….usually takes me a while to learn something in social areas, generally several years, and I seem to be able to learn things one at a time. Which makes me a bit leery as I’m due for another despondant revelation, and this one seems to be physical, though that’s neither here nor there. I’ve got about a fifty percent accuracy rate at any given time for guessing emotions and reactions, unless I know someone’s personal quirks very, very, very well, which is why I usually stay silent. I thought you found some trick to figuring out others’ emotions and reactions (and then compared them to your own, and hence, locating normality) that I’d missed.
A.W.
20 Jul 11 at 6:34 pm
….there’s supposed to be a paragraph break in there, sorry =S
A.W.
20 Jul 11 at 6:34 pm
A lot of this became clear to me in therapy, to be honest. That is, I had someone to discuss these things with. Other stuff became apparent because people would talk about emotional reactions to certain situations that made no sense to me. Some of this became clear from talking to other people on the spectrum.
And a lot of it is recent awareness.
Lisa Harney
20 Jul 11 at 7:26 pm
But yeah, I have no tricks in that regard. Sorry!
Lisa Harney
20 Jul 11 at 7:27 pm
Great post. Arguments like that make my skin crawl. My brother is Autistic and lacks theory of mind, yeah, but he’s just as empathetic as anyone else. He’s a small data set, to be sure, but I don’t take kindly to researchers dehumanizing Autistic people like that.
This is a really great topic. Thank you for writing about it.
Anon
26 Jul 11 at 12:45 pm
“All right, so you are not good at reading body language, the pitch of the voice and all the other obscure signs the rest of us use to get a sense of a person’s true feelings.
Still, you do “fake” an emotional reaction to make others feel better. Why would you do that, if you feel no love or sympathy for others?”
I don’t fake the reaction, because 1) even if I know what’s expected, I don’t like faking (or lying) 2) it would be hypocritical of me to just want to appear normal when in fact, I don’t want to be seen as normal (normal is overrated)
Schala
20 Aug 11 at 8:03 am