Reexamining Empathy in Autism: The Role of Empathic Disequilibrium in Autism and Autistic Traits (original) (raw)
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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.
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...
Affective and cognitive empathy in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder
Frontiers in human neuroscience, 2014
The broad construct of empathy incorporates both cognitive and affective dimensions. Recent evidence suggests that the subjects with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) show a significant impairment in empathic ability. The aim of this study was to evaluate the cognitive and affective components of empathy in adolescents with ASD compared to controls. Fifteen adolescents with ASD and 15 controls underwent paper and pencil measures and a computerized Multifaceted Empathy Test. All measures were divided into mentalizing and experience sharing abilities. Adolescents with ASD compared to controls showed deficits in all mentalizing measures: they were incapable of interpreting and understanding the mental and emotional states of other people. Instead, in the sharing experience measures, the adolescents with ASD were able to empathize with the emotional experience of other people when they express emotions with positive valence, but were not able to do so when the emotional valence is negati...
Molecular Autism, 2014
Background: Empathy is a vital component for social understanding involving the ability to recognise emotion (cognitive empathy) and provide an appropriate affective response (emotional empathy). Autism spectrum conditions have been described as disorders of empathy. First-degree relatives may show some mild traits of the autism spectrum, the broader autism phenotype (BAP). Whether both cognitive and emotional empathy, rather than cognitive empathy alone, are impaired in autism and the BAP is still under debate. Moreover the association between various aspects of empathy is unclear. This study aims to examine the relationship between different components of empathy across individuals with varying levels of genetic vulnerability to autism.
Frontiers in Psychiatry
Deficits in empathy have been considered hallmarks in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) but are also considered to underlie antisocial behaviour associated with individuals with callous unemotional traits (CU). Research has suggested that individuals with autism spectrum disorders show more difficulties with cognitive empathy, and that individuals diagnosed with behaviours difficulties, characterised by CU traits and antisocial behaviour, demonstrate low affective empathy. In the current manuscript we present findings of two studies. The first study describes the validation of a new stimulus set developed for the empathic accuracy task, focused on its cognitive component. The second study compares the performance of 27 adolescents with ASD, 27 age matched typically developing adolescents and 17 adolescents with behavioural difficulties on the empathic accuracy task and a self-report measure of empathy. While, no differences were observed between the three groups acros...
The Journal of Academic Social Science Studies, 2012
The purpose of this study is to investigate empathy skill levels of children with high functioning autism or Asperger Syndrome between the ages of 9 to 16 in terms of diagnosis, age and gender variables and compare the results with typically developed peers. This study was designed as a relational survey method, which is one of the descriptive methods. The subjects were 28 children with autism spectrum disorder (HFA and AS) and 42 typically developed children. Data collected via an adapted version of the "Empathy Scale for Children" and demographic forms. The results indicated a significant difference in empathy skill levels of the children with different diagnosis. The study reveals that children with high functioning autism (HFA) have lower empathic skills, whereas children with Asperger Syndrome (AS) do not differ from typically developed (TD) children in terms of empathic skill levels. Female children with HFA have a higher performance on a self-report empathy questionnaire than male children with HFA and there is no significant difference between females with HFA, AS and TD females. On the other hand, females with AS and HFA autism revealed slightly lower performances. According to the results, younger children (n<12) with AS and HFA do not differ from TD children. Children with HFA, older than 11 years of age revealed lower performances than children with AS and TD children.
Previous studies show that empathy deficits are considered an important barrier for the social development of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study compares the empathic responses between a group of children with ASD and a group of typically developing (TD) children. We included 63 children, out of which 26 had a diagnosis of ASD. We used an empathy task which simulated leg pain and an observational grid to assess four dimensions of empathy: affective responding, behavior activation, verbal empathic initiations and prosocial behaviors. The results showed that children with ASD had a lower performance at the affective responding and behavior activation dimensions, as compared with TD children, but there were no differences between the two groups in verbal empathic initiations and prosocial behaviors.
Journal of Evidence-Based Psychotherapies, 2014
Previous studies show that empathy deficits are considered an important barrier for the social development of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study compares the empathic responses between a group of children with ASD and a group of typically developing (TD) children. We included 63 children, out of which 26 had a diagnosis of ASD. We used an empathy task which simulated leg pain and an observational grid to assess four dimensions of empathy: affective responding, behavior activation, verbal empathic initiations and prosocial behaviors. The results showed that children with ASD had a lower performance at the affective responding and behavior activation dimensions, as compared with TD children, but there were no differences between the two groups in verbal empathic initiations and prosocial behaviors.