Empathy: Difference between revisions
(Added brief intro definition and example of talking at crossed purposes) |
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== Hyper-empathy == | == Hyper-empathy == | ||
Many Autistic people have what allistic people regard as "too much" empathy,<ref name="right-temporoparietal-junction" /> as we'll be ethical even when no-one's watching. | |||
Some of us also have a tendency to ascribe emotional states even to inanimate objects,<ref name="object-personification-in-autism" /> quite possibly explaining the prevalence of plushie [[Collection|collections]] within the community. | |||
== Hypo-empathy == | == Hypo-empathy == | ||
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* [[Double empathy problem]] | * [[Double empathy problem]] | ||
== References == | |||
<references> | |||
<ref name="right-temporoparietal-junction">[https://www.jneurosci.org/content/41/8/1699 Right Temporoparietal Junction Underlies Avoidance of Moral Transgression in Autism Spectrum Disorder]</ref> | |||
<ref name="object-personification-in-autism">[https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1362361318793408 Object personification in autism: This paper will be very sad if you don't read it]</ref> | |||
</references> | |||
[[Category:Psychology]] | [[Category:Psychology]] | ||
Revision as of 10:28, 1 September 2022
Empathy is defined as the ability to understand (cognitive empathy) and share (effective empathy) the feelings of other people.
This may be somewhat complicated by alexithymia, the ability to feel and describe your own emotions.
It may also be confounded by the different ways Autistic and allistic people tend to relate to emotions in terms of communication style. For example, if someone describes a plight of theirs, we might offer a similar story of our own to show how much we can relate to it. Allistic people will likely misinterpret this as an attempt to one-up them with a disregard for their feelings, rather than a sign of camaraderie.
Hyper-empathy
Many Autistic people have what allistic people regard as "too much" empathy,[1] as we'll be ethical even when no-one's watching.
Some of us also have a tendency to ascribe emotional states even to inanimate objects,[2] quite possibly explaining the prevalence of plushie collections within the community.
