Phenotypic and aetiological associations between psychopathic tendencies, autistic traits, and emotion attribution (original) (raw)
Related papers
Personality and Individual Differences, 2016
Although deficits in cognitive and emotional empathy are associated with specific developmental and neurological disorders, such as autism and psychopathy, little is known about the relationship between individual differences in psychopathic, autistic, and anxious traits, and behavioral measures of cognitive empathy, empathic concern, and affective sharing. Particularly, investigations of empathy rarely consider anxiety, or distinguish between different components of emotional empathy. Presently, healthy adults completed trait questionnaire measures and the Multifaceted Empathy Test, a performance-based task tapping cognitive empathy and multiple aspects of emotional empathy elicited by emotionally-charged realistic images. Heightened coldhearted psychopathic traits were associated with reduced empathic concern and affective sharing in response to affective images, and were unrelated to cognitive empathy performance. As expected, autistic traits were not associated with emotional empathy. Increased trait anxiety was linked to greater affective sharing, and arousal in particular, but this was driven by arousal elicited by contextual rather than social aspects of the stimuli. Thus, while coldhearted psychopathic traits appear to disrupt empathic processes thought to motivate altruistic behaviors, trait anxiety may influence subjective affective experience without instilling greater emotional empathy.
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. ASD traits are likely different. Whilst psychopathy appears characterized by problems with resonating with others’ emotions, ASD appears characterized by problems with cognitive perspective-taking. In addition, alexithymia has previously been associated with both disorders, but the contribution of alexithymia needs further exploration. In a community sample (N=110) we show for the first time that although affective resonance and cognitive perspective-taking are related, high psychopathic traits relate to problems with resonating with others’ emotions, but not cognitive perspective taking. Conversely, high ASD traits relate to problems with cognitive perspective-taking but not resonating with ot...
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2013
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. ASD traits are likely different. Whilst psychopathy appears characterized by problems with resonating with others' emotions, ASD appears characterized by problems with cognitive perspective-taking. In addition, alexithymia has previously been associated with both disorders, but the contribution of alexithymia needs further exploration. In a community sample (N = 110) we show for the first time that although affective resonance and cognitive perspective-taking are related, high psychopathic traits relate to problems with resonating with others' emotions, but not cognitive perspective taking. Conversely, high ASD traits relate to problems with cognitive perspective-taking but not resonating with others' emotions. Alexithymia was associated with problems with affective resonance independently of psychopathic traits, suggesting that different component processes (reduced tendency to feel what others feel and reduced ability to identify and describe feelings) comprise affective resonance. Alexithymia was not associated with the reduced cognitive perspective-taking in high ASD traits. Our data suggest that (1) elevated psychopathic and ASD traits are characterized by difficulties in different social information processing domains and (2) reduced affective resonance in individuals with elevated psychopathic traits and the reduced cognitive perspective taking in individuals with elevated ASD traits are not explained by co-occurring alexithymia. (3) Alexithymia is independently associated with reduced affective resonance. Consequently, our data point to different component processes within the construct of empathy that are suggestive of partially separable cognitive and neural systems.
Autism spectrum disorder and psychopathy: shared cognitive underpinnings or double hit?
Psychological Medicine, 2006
Background. We measured psychopathic traits in boys with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) selected for difficult and aggressive behaviour. We asked (i) whether psychopathic tendencies can be measured in ASD independent of the severity of autistic behaviour ; (ii) whether individuals with ASD with callous-unemotional (CU) traits differ in their cognitive profile from those without such traits ; and (iii) how the cognitive data from this study compare with previous data of youngsters with psychopathic tendencies.
Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 2010
Background: Empathy dysfunction is one of the hallmarks of psychopathy, but it is also sometimes thought to characterise autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Individuals with either condition can appear uncaring towards others. This study set out to compare and contrast directly boys with psychopathic tendencies and boys with ASD on tasks assessing aspects of affective empathy and cognitive perspective taking. The main aim of the study was to assess whether a distinct profile of empathy deficits would emerge for boys with psychopathic tendencies and ASD, and whether empathy deficits would be associated with conduct problems in general, rather than psychopathic tendencies or ASD specifically. Methods: Four groups of boys aged between 9 and 16 years (N = 96) were compared: 1) psychopathic tendencies, 2) ASD, 3) conduct problems and 4) comparison. Tasks were included to probe attribution of emotions to self, empathy for victims of aggression and cognitive perspective-taking ability. Results: Boys with psychopathic tendencies had a profile consistent with dysfunctional affective empathy. They reported experiencing less fear and less empathy for victims of aggression than comparison boys. Their cognitive perspective-taking abilities were not statistically significantly different from those of comparison boys. In contrast, boys with ASD had difficulties with tasks requiring cognitive perspective taking, but reported emotional experiences and victim empathy that were in line with comparison boys. Boys with conduct problems did not differ from comparison boys, suggesting that the affective empathy deficit seen in boys with psychopathic tendencies was specific to that group, rather than common to all boys with conduct problems. Conclusions: Although both groups can appear uncaring, our findings suggest that the affective/information processing correlates of psychopathic tendencies and ASD are quite different. Psychopathic tendencies are associated with difficulties in resonating with other people's distress, whereas ASD is characterised by difficulties in knowing what other people think.
Empathy: Autism and Psychopathy
This chapter examines empathy from a number of angles, especially autism and psychopathy. It is an overarching phenomenon. It is a central factor in interpersonal psychiatry and psychology. The definition of empathy is extremely complex, and multifaceted. It is necessary to be aware of the massive variability and heterogeneity in considering empathy, autism and psychopathy. An example of this is the new concept of autism called criminal autistic psychopathy. To understand this is, to understand lethal dangerousness. This is described in two school shootings with many deaths; Columbine and Sandy Hook. Neurobiology plays a major role in understanding empathy, autism and psychopathy. Early intervention is described and is of critical importance.
Reexamining Empathy in Autism: The Role of Empathic Disequilibrium in Autism and Autistic Traits
2021
Background: While many autistics report feelings of excessive empathy, their experience is not reflected by most of the current literature, which typically, but not always, suggests that autism is characterized by intact emotional empathy and reduced cognitive empathy. To try and bridge this gap in empirical findings and with respect to individuals' experiences, we examined a novel conceptualization of empathy termed empathic disequilibrium, i.e., the imbalance between emotional and cognitive empathy. Empathic disequilibrium was previously found to predict autistic traits in non-autistic population, suggesting it is an important empathy measure. Here, we aimed to extend the generalizability of empathic disequilibrium to the autistic population and to provide a better analytical approach to examine this construct.Methods: We analyzed self-reports of empathy and autistic traits in a large cohort (N = 4,914) of autistic and non-autistic individuals. We applied a polynomial regressi...
2020
Background. Features of autism spectrum conditions (ASC) are normally distributed within the population, giving rise to the notion of the autistic spectrum. One of the hallmark features of ASC is difficulties in social communication, which relies heavily on our ability to empathize with others. Empathy comprises of both cognitive (CE) and emotional (EE) components that, together, allow us to understand another's emotions and be affected by them appropriately, while maintaining a self-other distinction. Although CE and EE depend on distinct neural and developmental trajectories, it was suggested that the two empathic capacities can influence, balance, and regulate each other. Previous findings regarding the role of emotional and cognitive empathy in ASC have been mixed. Therefore, our study aimed to investigate whether the intra-personal empathy imbalance between the cognitive and emotional components, a measure we termed empathic disequilibrium (ED), can be associated with autis...
Autism Research
A large body of research showed that autistic people have intact emotional (affective) empathy alongside reduced cognitive empathy. However, there are mixed findings and these call for a more subtle understanding of empathy in autism. Empathic disequilibrium refers to the imbalance between emotional and cognitive empathy and is associated with a higher number of autistic traits in the typical population. Here we examined whether empathic disequilibrium predicts both the number of autistic traits and autism diagnosis. In a large sample of autistic (N = 1905) and typical individuals (N = 3009), we examined empathic disequilibrium and empathy as predictors of autistic traits and autism diagnosis, using a polynomial regression with response surface analysis. Empathy and autistic traits were measured using validated self-report questionnaires. Both empathic disequilibrium and empathy predicted linearly and non-linearly autism diagnosis and autistic traits. Specifically, a tendency towards higher emotional than cognitive empathy (empathic disequilibrium towards emotional empathy) predicted both autism diagnosis and the social domain of autistic traits, while higher cognitive than emotional empathy was associated with the non-social domain of autism. Empathic disequilibrium was also more prominent in autistic females. This study provides evidence that beyond empathy as was measured thus far, empathic disequilibrium offers a novel analytical approach for examining the role of empathy. Empathic disequilibrium allows for a more nuanced understanding of the links between empathy and autism.
PLOS ONE, 2015
Background Difficulties in appropriate social interaction are characteristic of both children with autism spectrum disorders and children with callous-unemotional traits (who are at risk of developing psychopathy). Extant experimental studies suggest that the nature of atypical social cognition that characterises these two profiles is not identical. However, 'empathizing' difficulties have been hypothesised for both groups, raising questions about the degree of aetiological separation between social impairments that characterize each disorder. This study explored the relative contribution of independent vs. shared aetiological influences to social and communication impairments associated with autistic traits and callous-unemotional traits, indexed by parent-report in a population-based cohort of twins. Methods Participants were over 5,000 twin pairs from a UK cohort (the Twins Early Development Study; TEDS), assessed for callous-unemotional traits at 7 years and autistic social and communication impairments at 8 years. Multivariate model-fitting was used to explore the relative contribution of independent vs. overlapping genetic/environmental influences on these traits. Results Both social and communication impairments and callous-unemotional traits were highly heritable, although the genetic and environmental influences accounting for individual differences on each domain were predominantly independent.