Theories about empathy

I believe that one of the core concerns that Asperger's have in concern with the majority of the population is empathy, but I have never been content with the notion that we are simply just born ignorant to this. First of all, empathy is not something that can be easily learned and practiced throughly, it while requires alot of dicipline and selflessness. That's why even though "normal" people seem to have it, they don't show it very often.

Empathy is essentially a form a prosocial behavior, in other words, you do positive things for others at the cost of some of your own personal freedom. But there are many motives for why people might chose to be empathetic, and some of them aren't so noble.

One reason is because we would like to believe in a "just" world, where the good are rewarded and the "bad" are punished. However, an inteligent person eventually will eventually realize that good and bad are subjective, and thus the real reason some are empathic in this regard is because we want nice this to happen for them or people like them.

Another reason we may chose and not chose to be empathetic depends on the person or the victim who is in trouble. Would you guys help someone that you didn't know if he/she was similair to you in regards to your appearances and core beliefs? Most likely you would, however if you turn this around, would you help out an individual if he/she was different or evenly starkly dissimilar to you? Unfortunatly no, and this is true for everyone, including aspergers, because it's very hard to relate to someone whose different, useless you're forced to share their experiences (walking a mile in someone else's shoe) in order to empathise with said individual.

Another very obvious reason we do nice things to other or attempt to understand how our action affect others is because of religious motives. Okay, I have to say this but does anyone HONESTY think that the fear of eternal damnation outwards the "moral" duty to do the "right" thing in order to ascend to heaven. Before I continue, I am not trying to tick any one off, and if someone has a different perspective about this feel free to respond about it.

In a nutshell, everyone knows what we are taught to beleive about heaven and hell, but there are motivations to be empathic to others. However, this is in reality an selfish reason to be nice to others, because we want good things to happen to us when we die, or rather, that's what we're told.

No one's evil for not being empathic if they aren't sure how to be empathic, but let's turn this around once again. If empathy is so important to neural typicals and they should know by now that asperger's lack it, why haven't they attempted to teach us it? The answer is that have, but it doesn't work for Asperger's because we need a different means of learning how to be empathic. People use to belive that blind could never read, by brail was develop so that they can. Those who are deaf are taught sign language so that they can communicate and understand others.

For me, I had to use self role playing, in other words I create potential situations and act out how I think both parties would behave towards one another. In other words, I talked to myself. Ha Ha, right? No, there's nothing funny about it because neural typicals do it all they time, but they are afraid of being called schizoprhenic, which is completely absurd, especially if you knew that processes that it takes to diagnose schizophrenia. Plus, aspegers are known to do this anyway, it's natural for us to verbalize are thoughts, so why not use it to help ourselfs.

Anyway, don't assume that your thoughts are so different from everyone elses that your hypothetical situations will never add up in the real world, because everyone thinks about how there are percieved by others, or how they would feel if someone they knew did something. This actually works, and it forces you to become more aware of how you actions might have or might affect others. Now whether you chose to be empathic once you've learned how to grasp the concept is up to you, but do it for the reasons that you feel our the better reasons, which aren't just the one's I've included about.

Phoenix wrote

"The answer is that have, but it doesn't work for Asperger's because we need a different means of learning how to be empathic. People use to belive that blind could never read, by brail was develop so that they can. Those who are deaf are taught sign language so that they can communicate and understand others.

For me, I had to use self role playing, in other words I create potential situations and act out how I think both parties would behave towards one another."


Good analogies. Makes perfect sense. I just wish the so-called "experts" would give us just a little bit of credit.

I am not indifferent to other people's emotions. I want to help if someone is in distress; I just do not always intuitively know what an appropriate response might be.

If you can recognize when someone's in distress, then this means that you should know how and why you might feel compelled to be empathic As I said early, it's not easy to know how to responsed to someone's distress, but this is a pretty universal problem. Sometimes we might be afraid of saying something because it might embarrass ourselfs. However, showing concern for other people's situations shouldn't be hindered because the situation is uncertain, or you might be afraid to make a mistake.

If someone responds negatively to you because some might "ask what's wrong", or "are you okay", or every "how's it going", they have some insecurity issues and their trying to take it out on the closest person to them. Asperger's should be good and listening to verbal commands and request, so really all you have to do is ask if someone is okay, whenever their in situation that would make you unconfortable.

Now the big secret is that most humans do this, because your not going to know what bugs certain people until they tell you, and when they tell, listen to them. Because most of us have a hell of a lot of things that bug us (everyone) , and if we can recipicate how our behavior can be adjusted to make someone else more confortable, they should be able to do the same. And if they don't, we this is propbably the best bit of information that the could offer you, because now you know that they won't respect you feelings, and therefore don't derserve you company or you're concern.

P.S. There are alot of people that won't B.S. you are hurt, and a few that might or will. The thing is, most people aren't evil, it's just that whenever their in a bad mood, sometimes they can be ***holes.

Ok, I signed up just for this.

It's important to parse words. Most people say it's "splitting hairs" to be this anal, but it really is essential to this thread that the words "empathy" and "sympathy" are defined separately.

"Empathy" is the ability to recognize an emotion in others by way of feeling it oneself when looking at that person's face, body, hearing their tone, or otherwise being in the general area.

"Sympathy" is the ability to feel the emotions of others through listening to their story. To be able to "understand where they're coming from".

Now that that's out there, I find myself unable to keep from analyzing the details of such phenomena.

Empathy has been proposed to derive from "mirror neuron" activation. IE, the same brain regions are active when experiencing an emotion and when feeling it. People with autism and/or Asperger's Syndrome are thought to perhaps have a deficit here. However, people with AS are often verbally advanced compared to a normal person, let alone a near-mute, highly-autistic child. Therefore, it is not without reason that I speculate AS patients may be better at sympathizing- sympathy being a largely intellectual process.

This can lead to a couple really interesting phenomena of its own. One the one hand, you could be in the middle of a crisis situation and understand you're supposed to feel a particular emotion, understand the gravity of the situation, but it simply does not hit you as much because you don't automatically pick up on the distress of others as if it were your own. This leads to an eerie feeling of depersonalization, and horrible guilt because you know you're not as upset as you should be. The same person can then watch a movie and have tears streaming down his or her face at the end. It's really messed up, but there one should always try to look on the bright side of life.

I don't know how many times in a crisis situation I've taken hold of the reigns and gotten people back to reality. More normal people, ones with better-functioning mirror neuron systems, will find their own emotions swayed away from the hysterical and negative if an AS person has a calm face on.

Well since we think differently, we learn differently. This isn't to say that some Aspies won't do well in school, but the neurotypical community method of a shared point of view may be a tad lost on some of us. I've found that if you block out all emotion, it will most likely come back in tsunami fashion once the person breaks down...this may be why the 'professionals' don't include it due to statistical malpractice, as I'm sure that once they 'break down' they're diagnosed as something else. Just a theory, mind you. lol

*edit* That isn't to say I am trying to separate the two examples as cliques, but I would recall asking things based on people's reactions, resulting in some....funny looks, to say the least.

Holy cow, I just noticed the date of this topic...consider this topic, resurrected! lol

masterdieff wrote:"Empathy" is the ability to recognize an emotion in others by way of feeling it oneself when looking at that person's face, body, hearing their tone, or otherwise being in the general area.

"Sympathy" is the ability to feel the emotions of others through listening to their story. To be able to "understand where they're coming from".

Really interesting. I never thought of the two quite like that.

I have a limited understanding of other people's emotional states, but it is an intellectual one. EG, this person is angry, possibly because of X, so they might do Y and Z next as a behaviour. I don't actually feel anything that they have.

Lofty wrote:I have a limited understanding of other people's emotional states, but it is an intellectual one. EG, this person is angry, possibly because of X, so they might do Y and Z next as a behavior. I don't actually feel anything that they have.

Exactly like me. I have a lack of empathy and I actually don't feel anything, only sometimes, I can't put myself in "someone else's shoes", I can't tell why someone is sad, I don't recognize facial expressions, body language, can't read from eyes, etc., but I do everything in theoretic way, just like you've said. And sometimes I react to other people's emotions in a very childish way or inappropriate, but it's not my guilty, it's just I can't emphasize with others well.

Btw, if neurotypicals can do all that and "naturally" know how to emphasize, why don't they teach us? I think it's quite weird, anyway.