autism vs psychopathy overlap/comparison

[Vindiesel]

[Differential diagnosis of psychopathy and autism spectrum disorders in adults. Empathic deficit as a core symptom] - PubMed

An accurate diagnosis of the type of empathic deficit involved could help to differentiate psychopathy from autism spectrum disorders. Good diagnostic tools are not yet available.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Dissecting empathy: high levels of psychopathic and autistic traits are characterized by difficulties in different social information processing domains

Individuals with psychopathy or autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can behave in ways that suggest lack of empathy towards others. However, many different cognitive and affective processes may lead to unempathic behavior and the social processing profiles of individuals with high psychopathic vs...

www.frontiersin.org

Curious on peoples thoughts about these articles or this topic in general if you have opinions about it and or researched about it?

If one has alexithymia and or a lack of emotional empathy these two conditions can appear the same from an untrained eye (clinically speaking just reiterating my summary of what I read). How they unpack it by saying that autism spectrum lacks cognitive empathy and psychopathy lack emotional empathy (obviously not a definitive expression) and how these predispositions can play a role in a social atmosphere or either no resonating with the emotional atmosphere and or reading others poorly can be hard to differentiate initially. (not saying people go around diagnosis people off a few data points.)

I just find this fascinating because a lot of the 2 conditions overlap.

 

[Magna]

Do psychopaths also experience hyper-empathy like many autistics do, myself included? Not that I'm aware.

I think the "lack of empathy in autistics" is probably one of, if not the worst and most damaging misconception autistics can experience. If I was to explain the issue in my own words I'd say this:

Autistics often need more specific details about a person's situation, condition, experience, etc in order to UNDERSTAND that person's issue. NTs seem to just automatically react in an apparent empathetic manner with no details. Autistics want their empathy to be genuine, not faked. Autistics aren't good at faking emotion and instead, we avoid being disingenuous. That's why details are needed to understand a person's situation in order to give a commensurate level of empathy. After all, there are different levels of genuine empathy depending entirely on a person's situation, condition, experience, etc.

Examples:

If a person yells "Ouch!" and says they just got a paper cut, an appropriate level of empathy would be something like: "Oh, that sucks! I hate when that happens."

In contrast, if a person ends a phone call, looks white as a ghost and says they just found out their spouse died in a car accident, the level of empathy is worlds greater than the paper cut. An empathetic reaction might be: "OH MY GOD!!!!!!!! NO!!!!! I'M SO SORRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

If a person gave the car accident empathetic response to the paper cut person, the level of empathy would be out of line. Conversely, if the person gave the paper cut empathetic response to the car accident situation their level of empathy would be grossly lacking.

Autistics want to UNDERSTAND the situation in order to honestly give the right amount of empathy to the person. This may appear outwardly of having no empathy (if they don't react right away) but in reality it's not even in the same realm as psychopathy. Not even related.

Real life example I can recount:

Years ago my wife and I were part of a group of married couples who would alternate hosting dinner at each respective couple's house. It was a church related thing. After the meal we'd sit around in a circle and talk about our life experiences since the last month. One of the wives said she'd just been diagnosed with cancer. The reactions from the rest of the group were immediate. I looked around the room and there was a range of empathetic responses. Some of the other women had looks on their faces that I would think a person would have if they heard that the other person was dying in a few days, etc. I had no reaction. Not because I had no empathy. I had no reaction because I had so many questions I felt I didn't have answers to, which prevented me from exhibiting the right amount of empathy.

What kind of cancer?
What stage?
Is it curable?
What's the prognosis?
Etc.

Much like the papercut vs. the car accident, there are many different kinds of cancers. There's melanoma that can often be eliminated by the excision of the lesion and there are terminal cancers with no cure which spread quickly. If the person ended up having localized melanoma that was completely removed, but initially only said: "I was diagnosed with cancer.", would the: "OH MY GOD!!!!!!!! NO!!!!! I'M SO SORRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" empathetic response have been appropriate? No.

We need details to UNDERSTAND the situation.

I will also say, speaking for myself, that I do have some difficulty being empathetic about things that I myself haven't experienced and therefore have no specific reference point to draw empathy from. But even this isn't a lack of empathy, it speaks to my strong need and desire to offer genuine emotion rather than contrived emotion.

 

[Vindiesel]

Just like the word empathy it is an idea which is highly subjective just like most attributes.

As you described Words maybe an indication of "empathy" in your case I would say that is more along the lines of emotional empathy or scripted cognitive empathy.
If you have sharp cognitive empathy this can be a Segway into appearing you care but maybe used to build rapport as well or feel that person is on your side but internally you couldn't necessarily care less or feel their pain even from a cognitive empathy perspective. Its a disguise to fit the context of the situation to not draw attention to yourself. (not saying all asd or psychopaths do this just giving a counter circumstance)

The lines are blurred still between the two because not all asd individuals have empathy (cognitive or emotional deficits) and all psychopaths lack emotional empathy; so understanding and caring is not a absolute pairing. (Im not trying to start up some debate but the premise of empathy in someone isnt quantifiable and is biased to one's perspective of said individual.) Empathy itself isn't the only defining factor between the two conditions.

For instance a coworker tells me something terrible happened to a significant other

I look at them with a flat affect and monotone voice and say that is terrible then follow up with inquisitive questions to validate their hardship.

vs

I look at them I put my hand on my chest and a worried expression on my face and say with an expressive in-flexion in my voice that is terrible and then follow up with inquisitive questions to validate their hardship.

Either mask or non mask scenario should net the same result regardless from the opposite party but unfortunately this isnt true across the board with everyone and isn't mutually exclusive to showing empathy or better yet a facade of empathy. I know its a slippery slope.

A cashier at the grocery store asks "how are you doing today?" Do you think all of them genuinely care? is this a standard social platitude to validate someone's existence yet has no real genuine meaning? or they are suggested by their employer that being a cashier you must be respectful, nice,pleasant with all customers and greet them?

That shenanigan is a slippery slope and only interpreted by how YOU see it.

 

[Judge]

From my own perception, the issue of empathy seems to be one that highlights what I refer to as the "neurological gap" between NTs and NDs.

Where NTs perceive NDs to have inherent deficits in empathy when the reality is probably closer related to autistic people not being able to project their empathy in ways in which NTs can identify it.

 

[Rodafina]

I think it is important to this discussion and those who discuss a lack of empathy in autistic people to broaden the idea of what constitutes empathy. In discussing an empathetic reaction to something we must consider one form of empathy is to remain calm and quiet and open to further information. This shows respect and care and understanding (or at least a desire to understand the other person) with perceivably no action at all.

This could all be intertwined with the sometimes more logical thinking that autistic people seem to prefer, where the logical thing is not to just do what seems empathetic by social and cultural standards, but show empathy by really trying to understand the situation, like @Magna said and responding accordingly.

Based on the experiences shared on this forum, there is no dearth of empathy that we have as a group. Some people have it in abundance, some people have it out of control, other struggle to understand and show it. As usual, we are a mixed bunch. It seems to be a stereotype that is reinforced by misunderstanding autistic peoples’ behavior.

 

[Jeff T]

Empathy is one of those things that seems to have 'soft boundaries' as to what it actually is. An exacting definition eludes me.
When a person or a group tells a joke or a happy story I often get filled with joy, even when my poor hearing doesn't allow me to understand what was said. Or when a woman is crying, I get very distressed and panicky. If it is convincing deeply sad acting in a movie, I will cry. I have been told that is not empathy?
When another person or critter yawns, I often start yawning. That is not empathy either apparently?
I think I lack a good bit of 'intellectual' empathy as I do not trust neurotypicals. Too many bricks in that wall?

I think I posted similarly some time back?

 

[Kayla55]

I thought I was only one from actually Pluto, but I realised NT people can become entangled in feelings and this blocks their subjective view, so a person may explain their situation and perspective, they assume others understand and agree with viewpoint and only find out later they stand confused.
And I thought I had hard time navigating waters of empathy

 

[Vindiesel]

I appreciate everyone’s valid responses.

Asperger's Disorder vs. Psychopathy

Emotionality differs between psychopaths and people with Asperger’s.

www.psychologytoday.com

Here is another link that tries to differentiate the two conditions. Seems to boil down to psychopaths lack remorse and are violent. According to their Asd study violence is rather low probability.

“People with ASD have no empathy and thus no emotional incentive to be prosocial.”

Which we know isn’t true so that report is bogus.

Then I have read that most the psychopaths that have been studied are in prison and seems like most people’s knowledge are conflated with what Hollywood paints. All psychopaths want to kill and are violent and destroy people’s lives with a sadistic malevolence. Yet they speak that there are pro social psychopaths that are surgeons, lawyers, race car drivers, military etc. that are not violent. So how can you generalize no remorse and violence yet speak of the inverse (not in this linked article)

No remorse can be faked like empathy is what I’m getting at. Or if someone with Asd doesn’t actively listen or read the situation wrong can be seen as a lack of remorse as well except it’s then being oblivious to social cues and reading faces (not all of course)


“We found that most of these studies included too few cases to support either a positive or negative link between ASD and damaging or fatal violence. In fact, the most prevalent type of aggression seems to be mild forms of sexual offending and fire setting. Very few had elements of sadism.”

I don’t know how they come up with these… when you were young did you set fires? Yup sure did. Tally one up Mr. therapist on this report for psychology today.

To complicate this farther you can be neurotypical and lack remorse, violent and lack empathy.

Labels are shortcuts for unpacking complexity yet exponentially compounds absurdities and ignorance.

 

[Magna]

I don't quite understand what your position is, @Vindiesel in relation to this thread topic. Is it of your personal opinion that ASD and Psychopathy are more or less interchangeable? Or are you of an opinion that they may appear to have some similarities to the uninformed and ignorant but are in fact completely different and moreover, autistics are clearly not remotely psychopaths and as such are incorrectly maligned and miscategorized?

 

[tazz]

Totally agree on needing detail before I can figure out the best way to react - which includes figuring out the best way to support someone who's distressed, because, you know, I'd like to, because it upsets me when someone is distressed. I'm autistic, i'm not a psychopath.

I would also add that an unrelenting focus on "the facts" gives one a different perspective on things.

I wrote a long response but honestly it brought me to tears and this isn't a private topic in the forum so I couldn't bring myself to leave it here in public. Here's the short version, it mentions child abuse:

Spoiler: possible triggers

I was in a car with a colleague and we hit a squirrel. The squirrel died. My colleague was very upset and crying about it. In that moment I thought to myself, if she's that upset over a squirrel, how is she ever going to cope with the knowledge that in the UK about 70 kids a year (that's 1 or 2 kids every week) are abused so badly that they die. She said she couldn't understand why I didn't care. I couldn't explain what was going through my head because I thought she wouldn't cope. So I said nothing.

Context is everything.

 

[Vindiesel]

I don't quite understand what your position is, @Vindiesel in relation to this thread topic. Is it of your personal opinion that ASD and Psychopathy are more or less interchangeable? Or are you of an opinion that they may appear to have some similarities to the uninformed and ignorant but are in fact completely different and moreover, autistics are clearly not remotely psychopaths and as such are incorrectly maligned and miscategorized?

I personally have never met a “psychopath” so from videos and literature the outward manifestation’s as in behavior, could “seem” interchangeable under “normal” conditions.

Yes, to your second question. Appear similar and potentially miscategorized. I guess I’m unsure where I’m actually going with this other than if others have been subjected to someone calling them a psychopath or some qualities of overlap you see in yourself.

If you never researched psychopathy or brain wiring just disregard my odd curiosity.

Soon enough brain scans will be a breeze or they will find markers in our dna to test everything.

 

[tazz]

Perhaps tentatively related, this was a good read: The Psychopath Test - Wikipedia

"Wildly funny and deeply disturbing – frequently at the same time – Ronson’s descent into the madness and terror of psychopathy throws up some uncomfortable truths about the way the world is run. Brimming with the author’s dogged investigative work and piercing insight, The Psychopath Test is a blistering account that asks compelling questions about how we quantify insanity."

 

[VictorR]

I will also say, speaking for myself, that I do have some difficulty being empathetic about things that I myself haven't experienced and therefore have no specific reference point to draw empathy from. But even this isn't a lack of empathy, it speaks to my strong need for offering genuine emotion rather than contrived emotion.

100%.

I recall a friend telling me their dog died and my response was "I understand but I don't understand" - in that I understand that they're going through pain and suffering, but I don't understand what that would be like for them as it's not something I had or would experience.

(While many people have pets to keep mutual company, I've chosen not to have a pet as I think I would be very distraught if they were injured, unwell, or passed, and I also worry about the possibility of what would happen if they were to outlive me but no one noticed my death for a long time and they end up neglected in the meantime.)

 

[AspiAngie]

I appreciate everyone’s valid responses.

Asperger's Disorder vs. Psychopathy

Emotionality differs between psychopaths and people with Asperger’s.

www.psychologytoday.com

Here is another link that tries to differentiate the two conditions. Seems to boil down to psychopaths lack remorse and are violent. According to their Asd study violence is rather low probability.

“People with ASD have no empathy and thus no emotional incentive to be prosocial.”

Which we know isn’t true so that report is bogus.

Then I have read that most the psychopaths that have been studied are in prison and seems like most people’s knowledge are conflated with what Hollywood paints. All psychopaths want to kill and are violent and destroy people’s lives with a sadistic malevolence. Yet they speak that there are pro social psychopaths that are surgeons, lawyers, race car drivers, military etc. that are not violent. So how can you generalize no remorse and violence yet speak of the inverse (not in this linked article)

No remorse can be faked like empathy is what I’m getting at. Or if someone with Asd doesn’t actively listen or read the situation wrong can be seen as a lack of remorse as well except it’s then being oblivious to social cues and reading faces (not all of course)


“We found that most of these studies included too few cases to support either a positive or negative link between ASD and damaging or fatal violence. In fact, the most prevalent type of aggression seems to be mild forms of sexual offending and fire setting. Very few had elements of sadism.”

I don’t know how they come up with these… when you were young did you set fires? Yup sure did. Tally one up Mr. therapist on this report for psychology today.

To complicate this farther you can be neurotypical and lack remorse, violent and lack empathy.

Labels are shortcuts for unpacking complexity yet exponentially compounds absurdities and ignorance.

Well that explains it better as I feel remorse but don't understand or feel as deeply what others are feeling. But I could never hit anyone or belittle someone without feeling guilt as it is an action I am aware hurts.

 

[AspiAngie]

Totally agree on needing detail before I can figure out the best way to react - which includes figuring out the best way to support someone who's distressed, because, you know, I'd like to, because it upsets me when someone is distressed. I'm autistic, i'm not a psychopath.

I would also add that an unrelenting focus on "the facts" gives one a different perspective on things.

I wrote a long response but honestly it brought me to tears and this isn't a private topic in the forum so I couldn't bring myself to leave it here in public. Here's the short version, it mentions child abuse:

Spoiler: possible triggers

I was in a car with a colleague and we hit a squirrel. The squirrel died. My colleague was very upset and crying about it. In that moment I thought to myself, if she's that upset over a squirrel, how is she ever going to cope with the knowledge that in the UK about 70 kids a year (that's 1 or 2 kids every week) are abused so badly that they die. She said she couldn't understand why I didn't care. I couldn't explain what was going through my head because I thought she wouldn't cope. So I said nothing.

Context is everything.

That reminded me of when I was in school and ran out the front door and stepped on a squirrel that was coming for a nut. I was so devastated I cried in the library at school and my supposed best friend laughed at me.

 

[Vindiesel]

I think what Im contemplating in regards to understand is what is the difference between "high functioning autism" vs "prosocial psychopathy?"

I feel that is the question that has never been answered probably due to psychopaths that are prosocial probably don't go to therapy.

I just find it interesting.

 

[Atrapa Almas]

Sorry for being late.

Both autism and antisocial "disorders" are part of the healthy human neurological divergence. Some very extreme and rare cases are non functional in both cases.

In ASD the natural understanding of human social/herarchy rules and the perception of body language and the filtering of the brain do not work normally. So ASD people may understand what is to feel like the other person, but dont know how to react properly from a social perspective.

In Alexithymia (almost 50% of the classic male autists stadistics show some degree of Alexithymia) there are emotions in our body, but we are not aware of them in various degrees. To give an example its like not feeling hunger and needing an external reminder to eat and a diet sheet to know what and how much to eat. Its a fail in the perception of the self.

In Antisocial its a lack of fear (to some degree) combined with lack of other emotions (in different degrees). In this case the body dont register the emotions. As an example, if we had 100 people being sudently scared, the antisocial person blood pressure would be the less affected. The alexithymian would not notice their fear despite having their hearts racing and the ASD might not show the fear they know they are feeling in their facial expresions...

Most crimes and assasinations are made on emotional spikes of despair, hate and anger that antisocial people do not feel. So they are not that problematic at that level. That the data of antisocial people comes from population in jails is a strong bias in understanding the condition since most antisocial people will never be at jail.

In the same way most autism studies are from very extreme and obvious cases, mostly males, who have very low masking skills and very clear physical manifestations like stimming, not looking to the eye, weird coordination and the like. So both conditions stadistics are biased.

What we percieve as evilness from antisocial people comes from their emotionless way to percieve the world. A common test to check antisocial behavour is the train question:

You are on a bridge among other people, a train is coming, the railway goes bellow the bridge and soon after into a big rock that just falled from a mountain some minutes ago. So the train will crash into the rock killing all their passengers if nothing is done. You look arround to see what people are doing. Most healthy adults are taking a video with their cellphones, there is a kid playing and an elder adult shouting to the train and moving their hands. ¿What would you do to save the train passengers?

Many antisocial people will find logic to kick down one person down the bridge so the train diver will brake and thus save the passengers.

They would naturally do nothing and enjoy the show in a real situation, but they will think that they are expected to try to save the passengers so they may find that kind of "logical" answer.

For NTs and autists its non a valid answer to sacrifice others to save others, so they would rather choose to sacrifice themselves. That will never make sense for an antisocial person since their own value is infinite in their logic. To sacrifice themself for the sole benefit of others is anti-logic in their view, and totally anti-natural for them. So they are seen as egoistic people.

If you are curious towards antisocial people, there are some YouTube channels where they speak first person about their issues. Just be aware that very like NTs, antisocial people do stuff based on their own interest, you cant expect them to just come and help like we do in this forum.

In their logic its quite stupid to expect them to use their resources (time, efford) for you in exchange of nothing. So even when they "help" there is some other reason behind, so be aware.

Our knowledge of antisocial logic help us to better understand artificial intelligence as they both work without emotions.

 

[Vindiesel]

Sorry for being late.

Both autism and antisocial "disorders" are part of the healthy human neurological divergence. Some very extreme and rare cases are non functional in both cases.

In ASD the natural understanding of human social/herarchy rules and the perception of body language and the filtering of the brain do not work normally. So ASD people may understand what is to feel like the other person, but dont know how to react properly from a social perspective.

In Alexithymia (almost 50% of the classic male autists stadistics show some degree of Alexithymia) there are emotions in our body, but we are not aware of them in various degrees. To give an example its like not feeling hunger and needing an external reminder to eat and a diet sheet to know what and how much to eat. Its a fail in the perception of the self.

In Antisocial its a lack of fear (to some degree) combined with lack of other emotions (in different degrees). In this case the body dont register the emotions. As an example, if we had 100 people being sudently scared, the antisocial person blood pressure would be the less affected. The alexithymian would not notice their fear despite having their hearts racing and the ASD might not show the fear they know they are feeling in their facial expresions...

Most crimes and assasinations are made on emotional spikes of despair, hate and anger that antisocial people do not feel. So they are not that problematic at that level. That the data of antisocial people comes from population in jails is a strong bias in understanding the condition since most antisocial people will never be at jail.

In the same way most autism studies are from very extreme and obvious cases, mostly males, who have very low masking skills and very clear physical manifestations like stimming, not looking to the eye, weird coordination and the like. So both conditions stadistics are biased.

What we percieve as evilness from antisocial people comes from their emotionless way to percieve the world. A common test to check antisocial behavour is the train question:

You are on a bridge among other people, a train is coming, the railway goes bellow the bridge and soon after into a big rock that just falled from a mountain some minutes ago. So the train will crash into the rock killing all their passengers if nothing is done. You look arround to see what people are doing. Most healthy adults are taking a video with their cellphones, there is a kid playing and an elder adult shouting to the train and moving their hands. ¿What would you do to save the train passengers?

Many antisocial people will find logic to kick down one person down the bridge so the train diver will brake and thus save the passengers.

They would naturally do nothing and enjoy the show in a real situation, but they will think that they are expected to try to save the passengers so they may find that kind of "logical" answer.

For NTs and autists its non a valid answer to sacrifice others to save others, so they would rather choose to sacrifice themselves. That will never make sense for an antisocial person since their own value is infinite in their logic. To sacrifice themself for the sole benefit of others is anti-logic in their view, and totally anti-natural for them. So they are seen as egoistic people.

If you are curious towards antisocial people, there are some YouTube channels where they speak first person about their issues. Just be aware that very like NTs, antisocial people do stuff based on their own interest, you cant expect them to just come and help like we do in this forum.

In their logic its quite stupid to expect them to use their resources (time, efford) for you in exchange of nothing. So even when they "help" there is some other reason behind, so be aware.

Our knowledge of antisocial logic help us to better understand artificial intelligence as they both work without emotions.

Thank you for your response and I agree.

So that's were the line blurs.... autism with high level of alexithymia and a prosocial psychopath in the realm of neurological divergence. What is the definitive differential? That's the gray area I'm poking at.

What I mean by prosocial is they uphold a great job/career surgeon, lawyer, race car driver...no violent past, no fraud or vindictive/sadism towards others.

The manifestation of psychopathy is extrememly rare compared to asd. Being rare and some level of overlap they maybe diagnosed Asd and most of their symptoms present as such with alexathymia.

 

[Atrapa Almas]

I dont see any line. To me its the human spectrum.

If you happen to see a line that goes from good natural social skills (no masking needed) to bad natural social skills ( masking needed) then Autism and Antisocial are close each other.

If you happen to see a line that goes from the very high Ego (Im the most important person in the world) to the not so high Ego (we are all equally important) then Autism and Antisocial are in opoosite places with NTs in the middle.

If you happen to see a line that goes from criminality to following rules, then Autists are in one side (rules followers) and impulsive people like bipolar and ADHD are in the opossite side (not caring about rules). NTs are somewhat in the middle (they care about rules unless the reward to risk ratio is very good and if the rule breaking action is ok with their values) As an example, not paying taxes to a goverment they dislike. And antisocials are also in the middle, just affected by the risk/reward ratio.

I dont think there are a low percentage of antisocials. Likewise I also think the percentage of high masking autists is really high. When masking is good both neurotypes are invisible to others. So the real numbers are unknown.

 

[Vindiesel]

I dont see any line. To me its the human spectrum.

If you happen to see a line that goes from good natural social skills (no masking needed) to bad natural social skills ( masking needed) then Autism and Antisocial are close each other.

If you happen to see a line that goes from the very high Ego (Im the most important person in the world) to the not so high Ego (we are all equally important) then Autism and Antisocial are in opoosite places with NTs in the middle.

If you happen to see a line that goes from criminality to following rules, then Autists are in one side (rules followers) and impulsive people like bipolar and ADHD are in the opossite side (not caring about rules). NTs are somewhat in the middle (they care about rules unless the reward to risk ratio is very good and if the rule breaking action is ok with their values) As an example, not paying taxes to a goverment they dislike. And antisocials are also in the middle, just affected by the risk/reward ratio.

I dont think there are a low percentage of antisocials. Likewise I also think the percentage of high masking autists is really high. When masking is good both neurotypes are invisible to others. So the real numbers are unknown.

My understanding is psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder are two different clinical terms. If you receive the diagnosis of aspd that doesn't necessarily define you as a psychopath nor do all psychopaths fit the criteria hence my use of "prosocial.". You can be an nt and meet the criteria for antisocial personality disorder. Unless your using antisocial term in the context of "antisociety" or people that don't care about anyone else but themselves and as you said risk/reward which isn't necessarily indicative of psychopathy. Semantics to some degree.

So you feel ego, criminality and masking categorically separates everyone into nt, asd and psychopathy camps? (trying to understand why those specific terms differentiate those camps)