Cognitive Empathy

Hey, so I don't have ASPD but I've gotten really interested in it lately. I've been watching a lot of videos by James Fallon who is a neuroscientist that studies psychopaths and is a psychopath himself. He brought up a point that I wanted to ask about and see what people in the board thought about it. Fallon sometimes talks about cognitive empathy and says that psychopaths are capable of this. What this is is basically you are able to care about groups of people and issues that affect them i.e. you may care about systematic racism and how it affects minorities, or women's rights, or children of the world; this is different than caring for say any individual person in the group but you may care about the issue itself and its impact on society. Does this ring true for anyone here with ASPD?

Hi Calculus Lord,
James Fallon has the markings of ASPD, unsure if he has it or not. Cognitive empathy I thought is being able to understand people. It's a manipulative tool. It leads to mirroring.

Now, do you like math?

Hey,

Have you ever heard of the concept of an empathy switch? I think you should do some research into it, it might be interesting to you. Anyway, cognitive empathy isn't really empathy if you ask me.. I kinda feel like it's a way of reflecting/comparing that pretty much anyone with a basic level of intelligence can do. It doesn't really require any emotions to get to the level of cognitive empathy. Just my experience, I'm no expert ^^

Brighties right about cognitive empathy...does Fallon claim its about caring about groups of people? Also were the examples from Fallon or your diseased mind?

omg

for the billionth time...

crystal_richardson_ wrote:James Fallon himself has mentioned that he does not have psychopathy.

But a crucial question remained. Are these biological markers alone enough to create a psychopath?

Fallon suspected not. But little did he know that he would receive some validation for this suspicion from so close to home.

Fallon has come to believe that, in addition to particular brain and genetic patterns, there is a third ingredient involved in the development of a violent psychopath. The environment, he explains, can help determine whether violence-related genes and certain brain processes, such as those involving mirror neurons, are triggered towards aggression. Specifically, he believes that abuse – especially severe early childhood sexual, physical or emotional abuse – is instrumental in this process. And he also believes that the precise timing of when various factors come into play is critically important in determining whether one becomes a psychopath and, if so, exactly what type of psychopathological behavior is exhibited.

As for why he himself is not a violent man, Dr. Fallon credits his upbringing in a highly nurturing environment, in which he was not only not abused, but was showered with wonderfully loving family support.

http://www.ponerologynews.com/neuroscie ... prevented/

Cognitive empathy is simply recognizing and understanding other people's emotional states. It doesn't require you to care about them or to even feel the emotion they're feeling.

All psychopaths have cognitive empathy. If they didn't have it, they wouldn't be able to manipulate people.

In response to Powerkip's comment - When people talk about the empathy switch, they're not talking about cognitive empathy. They are talking about affective empathy, which results from emotional contagion (being emotionally affected by other people's emotions). Unlike the average person, it's off by default in psychopaths, but can be 'switched on' when it suits them.

i have to admit my understanding of empathy is theoretical but it's accurate i think.

affective empathy isn't just being emotionally affected by a person. that's too vague, like being happy when you see someone doesn't amount to empathy.

and really to break it up into these separate terms isn't helpful. i think it's just a way for people nowadays to deny they lack real empathy for another; and really how can people have empathy for each other given the diversity and disconnect among members of the population?

anyway, empathy is seeing or hearing about something being done or happening to someone else and experiencing it as if it were being done or happening to you.

it isn't literally imagining yourself in their position, but rather seeing the similarities between you and that person and reacting as if you were imagining it were happening to you.

like let's say someone right now walked over to you sitting in your chair, pulled your hair back and drove a big rusty nail right through your eye socket.

can you feel the rusty nail going into your eye socket as you red this? the sharp rough edges grinding your socket bone puncturing your delicate eyeball and clear vitreous fluid bursting out and going into your skull?

do you cringe reading this? if you have any distress at reading this, then you have empathy for yourself. if you have distress at imagining it happening to someone else, then you have empathy for others.

and i think what is necessary for that leap from feeling empathy for yourself to feeling empathy for others is a sense of connection, feeling that they are part of you and thus while their pain receptors aren't attached to your brain, you can easily imagine yourself (and it's instinctive/automatic) in their position and thus their experience happening to you and what you would feel imagining it being done to you - which is not the same as it actually being done to you, but just how you would feel imagining it being done to you.

one theme i've noticed lately is everything is part of everything - I was wandering around last year with my husband and I saw this fat guy - he was so fuking fat and i thought wow you fat pathetic fuk why do you exist - and he was staring at me - i looked at him he smiled and this beam of light came out of his stomach and encased me and i felt something i never felt before so i looked around and saw triangles of light connecting all- this made me confused, so we decided to go wash the car - this was all indeed very fun

what I suspect is whether you get it or not, you're in it - and unfortunately I don't get their triangular lights, but maybe one day I will

I think everyone experiences levels of cognitive empathy. It's necessary to try to understand another person's perspective and mindset to function as a social being, even if their emotions seem completely alien. Many of my friends suffer with problems I can't begin to have emotional empathy for, but I can logically piece together information to give an answer that will help them. It's rare that I have genuine emotional empathy, there are many things other people experience that I don't seem to. Without cognitive empathy, I probably wouldn't have a very big social network. My desire to care and help is genuine, even if I don't relate to them I want to ease their passion.
However, I've never been diagnosed with AsPD, nor do I think I have it. I'm in a relationship with someone that has, and I'm trying to understand her better. She does seem more upset and enraged by concepts and injustices in the world rather than an individual person being upset. It's not infrequent that she's apathetic to a hurting person. She does show extreme discomfort and unhappiness when I'm upset. I can't know if that's genuine emotional empathy, or manipulation.

nah