autism vs psychopathy overlap/comparison

[Progster]

There was another similar thread here a few years ago, where someone with psychopathy came and talked about what it is like to have this, no empathy. It was... interesting.

 

[Atrapa Almas]

To my understanding (I'm not an expert) the antisocial spectrum is a mmm... Spectrum. The more NTs are Narcisistics, then go Sociopaths and then Psychopaths.

It's very much like the divisions between Autism 1, 2 and 3 but with fancier names. The actual Spectrum is more complex so you can find NTs with Antisocial traits like love for lies or traits like enjoy other people suffering.

Very much like you can NTs with hyperfocus, which is an Autist trait.

The human spectrum is multi dimensional, with many traits like ethics, dichotomic thinking, hypo and hyper sensitivities, emotions.... I have just used those as examples to show that depending on which traits you focus on, you can put Autism ans Antisocials as similars or as opposites.

We represent spectrum as a circle of colours, so you may think some guys are the blue, and others are the green to conclude that the line between blue and green is blur. But its not that simple. In that specific trait (social) they may seem close and in ethics they seem to be opposite.

 

[AspiAngie]

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.

I was thinking I would yell for everyone to run to the back of the train for less impact.

I remember when I was a kid, my dad was working on the pickup truck's carborator and had it out and on the kitchen floor. My mom not thinking went to take us for groceries pilled my brothers and I into the truck and started it. There suddenly was a fire (no explosion) and my mom just was in pure shock and panic but not able to get any words out, rushing us out of the truck and going to the next door neighbour's door. I remember my brother had to speak for my mom saying the truck was on fire and since it was winter he put snow on the fire and it died down.

I never reacted emotionally but did have nightmares for awhile as in bed in the dark I would think I see the outlets on fire.

So they are seen as egoistic people.

As a kid I would get picked on a lot and literally beat up and dragged through the mud. I finally found out why when one girl told me years later that she thought I was a snob since I did not talk to others.

 

[Stuttermabolur]

I think @Atrapa Almas made some excellent replies and clearly know what he's talking about. I won't say much (40 50 minutes later: lol), but since psychopathy was an interest of mine for a few months, I do have some thoughts.

First off, I prefer not making a distinction between psychopathy and sociopathy. There exist all sorts of different definitions, but the line between them always seems muddled and somewhat made up (a bit like Aspergers and autism). Some people consider both things to be the same condition and that's where I'm at, for simplicity's sake.

I think that what often gets left out in discussions of psychopathy, is the lack of fear @Atrapa Almas mentioned. Conversely, fear and anxiety is heightened with people on the spectrum in general, though it can be worked on. Psychopaths tend to be impulsive thrill seekers who don't hesitate much when they decide to go for something. They also don't necessarily have a higher "intellect" (whatever that means) than the general population, contrary to the mastermind stereotype. One interesting consequence is that psychopathic criminals tend to have a more varied profile than other prisoners, often partaking in all sorts of "petty crimes" because they felt like it at the moment and didn't expect to get caught. Interestingly enough, they don't tend to plan much for the future, and can underestimate risks (or don't care about them)

Even though I'm not a psychopath myself, I feel like I somewhat understand them. I get a lot of enjoyment out of helping others and I like being kind, but if I didn't have those nice feelings, well, I don't see any reason for why I "wouldn't" think of myself first. Especially if I also didn't have anxiety based on how others perceive me. It is a strong personal belief, that everyone is inherently selfish. What I mean by this is not that everyone is secretly a bastard, but rather that we really "can" only make decisions we "want" to make, even if they are bad for us. A person with depression believes that life is pointless, and they don't get enjoyment out of most things in their lives. They also tend to lack energy, so it's actually perfectly rational for them to stop taking care of themselves, in their depressed state. Similarly, a person with autism doesn't "decide" or "choose" to have a meltdown, it's something which happens because they really can't get a hold on their emotions or senses.

It can be very strange to see what they say though, and it's easy to be drawn in. I used to read a blog run by some psychopath who was in prison. I though he came across as very aloquent and came across well (though he complained a lot about the prison in his nordic country). I followed it for a few days, until he offhandedly mentioned that he was in for multiple homicides. I think he might have killed some family members/girlfriend. I would never have guessed from the way he spoke.

Also, I have read the Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson, and though he's a great writer, It isn't the best work when it comes to clinical understanding of psychopathy. It's very much pop psychology based. It was the first book to be opposed by the Society of the Scientific Study of Psychopathy, and Robert Hare, the maker of the most popular "psychopath test" gave a withering description of how he was misrepresented. I recommend this article where (among others) an actual psychopath gives an account of how psychopathy manifests. He is not a criminal, but a neurologist who discovered he was a psychopath late in life after showing some professionals his brain scan.

Psychopathy is relevant for us I think, not because psychopaths are similar to us (I would actually say they have several clear differences overall), but because like autism, psychopathy seems to be largely genetic, and they (like we do) seem to have a different brain structure, and so it's something inherent in both populations, rather than something "learned", though in both cases, trauma and other negative experiences (especially in childhood) can manifest in way that can make you seem autistic/psychopathic. My ex was diagnosed as sociopathic when she was a child, but it was really because of severe childhood trauma which made her unresponsive and uncaring as a defensive mechanism. Even if psychopathy is genetic, how you are treated as a child still has a lot to say in how you grow up, and "sadistic" tendencies are more likely to manifest if you are mistreated as a psychopathic child.

As some people have mentioned, psychopaths often grow into well functioning adults who can do quite well for themselves in high intensity professions. However, if they don't go to prison, they are very rarely diagnosed. Both because being a psychopath carries a lot of stigma, but also because the thought almost never enters their mind. It's actually a bit peculiar how rarely they discover it by themselves. As the prisoner I mentioned described it "if you are worried that you might be psychopathic, you almost certainly aren't one". I actually took a psychopathy test (I think it might even have been the Hare one), and I scored 3/40. 20+ is borderline (depends on the country) while 30+ shows clear signs of it. As @Atrapa Almas mentioned, it is a type of spectrum.

 

[Vindiesel]

Great read very interesting

https://verbosestoic.wordpress.com/fearlessly-amoral-psychopaths-autistics-and-learning-with-emotion

 

[Hypnalis]

@Vindiesel

I scanned that article, but from my viewpoint it started badly /sigh.
I don't buy the early argument that morality is based on emotion.

You can find all moral principles equally well by applying (a) the "Do unto others .." approach, and (b) accepting the principle that goes by "Traditions are the answers to problems we've forgotten" these days for complementary, but not obviously, rational social practices.
(for an easy perspective on old-school (non-USA) progressive vs conservative approaches, see "Chesterton's Gate").

There's a more general argument that "nobody" understands why they actually do things, and that people make up more-or-less self-serving stories after the fact to explain their actions. That could generate all kinds of "false positives" in testing for abstract principles like morality.
("nobody" got the quotes because I don't believe that's 100% true. It's certainly true a lot of the time for a lot of people though (it's been tested in the part of Psychology that's not affected by the "Replication crisis" )

I think the reason Aspies differ from Psychos is simpler. We have empathy, but it presents differently to NT's, who wrongly think we don't have it at all.

My usual framing of this is that we have the "don't do bad things to other entities" kind of empathy, which the "Dark Triad" and OFC people with the corresponding ASPDs lack.
You don't need to be able to map your emotional states directly 1:1 onto other people's to have that kind of empathy. It's independent of the fact that ND <-> NT "emotional palettes" are different. You just need to be able to understand others' discomfort.

To me the medical profession's lack of insight into this rather obvious difference between ASD and psychos is just another indication that they've never made the effort to understand HFA.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

When my mother had a stroke and ended up in hospital, some of my work mates asked how she was doing. They were surprised I responded I did not expect her to survive. The unvarnished truth at the time I had no clue I was on the spectrum, this does not make a psychopath, just someone who likes their privacy. simply went back to work.
When my dad died a few years later while I was on vacation did not inform my work mates none of their business.
just my private business. I had a stroke other on this site have had private conversations to commiserate same thing privacy.

 

[Vindiesel]

@Vindiesel

I scanned that article, but from my viewpoint it started badly /sigh.
I don't buy the early argument that morality is based on emotion.

You can find all moral principles equally well by applying (a) the "Do unto others .." approach, and (b) accepting the principle that goes by "Traditions are the answers to problems we've forgotten" these days for complementary, but not obviously, rational social practices.
(for an easy perspective on old-school (non-USA) progressive vs conservative approaches, see "Chesterton's Gate").

There's a more general argument that "nobody" understands why they actually do things, and that people make up more-or-less self-serving stories after the fact to explain their actions. That could generate all kinds of "false positives" in testing for abstract principles like morality.
("nobody" got the quotes because I don't believe that's 100% true. It's certainly true a lot of the time for a lot of people though (it's been tested in the part of Psychology that's not affected by the "Replication crisis" )

I think the reason Aspies differ from Psychos is simpler. We have empathy, but it presents differently to NT's, who wrongly think we don't have it at all.

My usual framing of this is that we have the "don't do bad things to other entities" kind of empathy, which the "Dark Triad" and OFC people with the corresponding ASPDs lack.
You don't need to be able to map your emotional states directly 1:1 onto other people's to have that kind of empathy. It's independent of the fact that ND <-> NT "emotional palettes" are different. You just need to be able to understand others' discomfort.

To me the medical profession's lack of insight into this rather obvious difference between ASD and psychos is just another indication that they've never made the effort to understand HFA.

I don’t believe that emotions and morality are purely related either. I even read an absurdity that the brains are wired with morality like it’sa function. They tried to battle that to have morality or Ethics is predicated on some form of empathy. You would atleast need cognitive empathy to Atleast obtain some level of equilibrium in society and to obtain what you want.

I still think hfa and pro social psychopathy rather blurry in regards to traits. Unless you mri both people even then the spectrum is vast enough to not relatively define a list of subjective traits or even place a definitive metric other than two individuals with emotional processing issues and other quirks like any other person. Psychopathy is too jaded by Hollywood presentations and pulling most studies from prison inmates. So it is biased to the impulsive psychopaths not the pro social ones that function well in society.

 

[GrownupGirl]

Of course I don't have empathy for idiotic humans who treat the us and world like garbage. Maybe I would have empathy if they woke up and stopped being selfish and destructive fools who won't shut up about the Barbie movie or whatever but live in climate change denial, or refuse to get their kids vaccinated, or say rich people bad but then have no problems saying yes if somene asks if they would murder someone if it would make them rich.

 

[Kayla55]

Denial is still denial sub-conscious or not. My theory is just that it encapsulates on many levels, some have a complex evolved denial system others a pea-pod.

Anyone having mother figure issues or relationship can go out and play copy cat....can learn how to be a psycho and kill usually women. So brains isn't a factor with NT people to improve their 'unique' murder scheme to be the right to waste more police officers time.

An autistic may not need same family structure or relationships so it may not affect them to go out killing so perhaps it's emotional neglect or abuse. We could have autistic who just like a snake wanted to be alone, had every ability to more than sustain themselves, full ideas but not fitting into world of apes. So snake bite people and lost mind and put up a unique killing culture scene that would leave many copycats behind.

So we owe our company to those who can lift us up out of stupor. Could a psycho date an aspie girl, most likely end in conflict and he would be to nt shallow to fulfill her needs. It would be lengthy process to try explain why he should date his own kind as range of emotions isn't shared but mostly men never analyse beyond getting laid, so let's just account that no, the real MC coy therapist wasn't gay, he stole his sister's homework.

 

[Hypnalis]

@Vindiesel

The possibility of psychopathy seems to be based on something that can be picked up by a brain-scan (i.e. correlates well with something that can be measured).
That "hardware" doesn't automatically mean exceptionally bad behavior though. The subset that exhibit extreme behavior correlates with other factors in addition to what shows up in brain scans.

Our problem is that the diagnostic tools for ASD, especially HFA, are extremely vague.
If you look at symptom clusters for ASD you find things that turn up in multiple disorders, but there are no simple 1:1 two-way links.

Empathy is a good example: we have it, but just the core that makes us disinclined to hurt people or animals.
The extra part that is linked to understanding the emotional states of other people is weak and/or absent.

This could be addressed in two ways:
* Split the definition of empathy (this seems necessary to me, but it won't happen soon)
* Put up with semi-sentient pseudo scientists that keep looking for weak non-causal correlations and write articles about the similarities between us and groups of people who are actually socially disruptive and destructive.
(This will keep happening for the foreseeable future)

The reason I'm not optimistic isn't easy to explain concisely, but it's somewhat related to the existence of multiple mechanisms for assessing and understanding other people.

When communicating with another person, there's automatic processing to select the right "level" - for example everyone speaks differently with children than with adults, and differently with someone who shares an interest or skill-set than with someone, who doesn't have the same knowledge.

This isn't unlike the "assess the other person's emotional state" aspect of empathy.
That's not surprising - it's a similar requirement, solved in a similar way, within the broader domain of animal and human interaction.

Unfortunately there's a problem - these things aren't widely understood. Like reading body-language, there's a general awareness that it exists, but no general awareness of how it works, and a very limited vocabulary for discussing it.

Empathy can't be easily separated into its distinct elements until someone or something bridges the vagueness.

I had hopes that Evolutionary Psychology would get around to this, but unfortunately it's being actively suppressed at the moment.. IMO we'll have to wait until after the "culture wars" are resolved - so 10-20 years at best, never at worst.,

 

[Outdated]

@Vindiesel thanks for starting this thread. Yes I'm a bit late, only just noticed it and found it pretty fascinating.

Long before I knew anything about autism I lost the plot and ran away in to the bush so that I could find the peace I needed to self analyse. Aussie blokes don't do therapy.

One of the thoughts that kept coming back to me and I kept wondering about was Sociopathy. I have all the same abilities as your hollywood stereotypes like Tony Soprano. I'm likeable and charismatic, highly intelligent and quick witted, and I'm an empath. I can socialise very well when I want to.

I'm often much more sensitive to people's emotions than they themselves are. Where a lot of people make a mistake in their understanding of an empath is that Empathy Does Not Mean Sympathy. I can be a con man if I want, I can schmooze with the best of them. I have a fairly strong moral code, in fact my father even told me I was too stuck up and honourable for my own good, and he was a constitutional lawyer and a politician.

But that doesn't stop me from getting what I want when I want it, in some ways society should be grateful that I'm happy with a simple life. All I have to do is talk to people and they like me and want to help me with whatever I want.

For the most part anyway, there's always exceptions.

I also don't feel grief when friends or family die. I don't feel anything about that and I have to walk around pretending to be sad, which is tiresome. So in a way I do end up upset, just not for the reasons they all think. I have felt real grief only twice in my life, at the end of a relationship with a woman.

But to put that in to balance, I also don't miss people when they're still alive, I don't need their constant company, and if I move to a different state I never forget them but they just become irrelevant to my life.

There's a couple I keep in touch with, a musician in Melbourne from when I lived there 25 years ago and another mate from Dundee, but if we don't hear from each other for months at a time that's nothing unusual, we're still good mates.

I also get along exceptionally well with animals, quite often I relate to animals more easily than I do to people.

3 years ago I was diagnosed as ASD2 and listed as someone that requires substantial support.

 

[Kayla55]

Maybe you trying to analyse too much, earth is organic and otherwise complicated.
It's like brown recluse is shy spider, may even have 1 in your house but you never know!!
So I think we got rid of spiders, not fennel web turned out actually black hacklemesh weavers.....but I've managed to give notice due to other factors so I can finally move.
Females in nature are not supposed to have empathy, it's survival of fittest, and that isn't fitting in with human or bible explanations. Spiders on other hand tend to explain life better, it's not that black widow eats male, most spiders do this....less outcry over female donating her body to spiderlings. But male ego is designed in selfish arrogance which is what autism isn't. Humans need acceptance and echnoring has shown to produce negative unwanted behaviour but must have attention. So clash with aspie females who no, don't understand this man's need love and acceptance as hard wired differently.

Maybe psycho as you say have chemical in brain, way most gay people who claim to be opposite really are. But to just shatter stereotypes most females content with gay friends and casual to take advice, autism isn't cliche and find aspie may react to suggestions from gays in adverse ways as have own ideas which isn't what women supposed to have.
Maybe psycho are just predator spiders that eat other types of spiders and you trying to rationalise organic behaviour!!

 

[Misty Avich]

Empathy can be a sore subject to many autistics and is best to look at empathy as a subjective behaviour/feeling rather than "one group has empathy, another group doesn't".

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

I inherited a strong feeling of empathy from my mother. Over and above my being on the spectrum. not sure if That are really connected in the overall theory of being autistic.

 

[Vindiesel]

Lawyers, surgeons, race car drivers, police officers to name a few attract psychopathic pathologies because their innate ability makes them thrive in those positions where compartmentalization and emotional control/deficit exceeds those neurotypical people in the same positions.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

My brother has an undergraduate degree in phycology. there are psychopaths. and sociopaths, we Aspies are neither, getting labeled as one Is one of the reasons, I have no intention of ever getting. officially labelled.

 

[Kayla55]

You’re jaded that psychopathy in essence are people that murder or serial kill which inherently isn’t always the case and still rather rare.

Lawyers, surgeons, race car drivers, police officers to name a few attract psychopathic pathologies because their innate ability makes them thrive in those positions where compartmentalization and emotional control/deficit exceeds those neurotypical people in the same positions.

Results revealed a significant positive relationship between anxious attachment style and both primary and secondary psychopathy; avoidant attachment was significantly correlated with secondary psychopathy alone; and, anxious-avoidant attachment was associated with both primary and secondary psychopathy.

To extend Niche and Jung theory, we review theory of attachment. For example, Jung disagreed with Freud's focus on sexuality as a key motivating behavioural force, as well as believing Freud's concept of the unconscious as too limited and overly negative.
Theory is echnoring a narcissist is best ammo but don't think they affect autistic people same way, I may be wrong but I've noticed spectrum people react to abuse differently.

Overview. Antisocial personality disorder, sometimes called sociopathy, is a mental health condition in which a person consistently shows no regard for right and wrong and ignores the rights and feelings of others.

Clinical observations at ASH have suggested 4 possible subtypes of psychopathy: narcissistic, borderline, sadistic, and antisocial. Issues related to the conceptualization of psychopathy are addressed, recognizing that additional data are needed to understand the observed variations in cases of psychopathy.

Psychopaths are classified as people with little or no conscience but are able to follow social conventions when it suits their needs. Sociopaths have a limited, albeit weak, ability to feel empathy and remorse.

Being Whitechapel a slum at the time of the crimes, if Jack the Ripper was born there his childhood was probably not a happy one, living in grueling misery and degradation. (Is resource for identifying mother/child relationship and father/child) Freud does have valid point on sex, because even if not directly murdering his wife, he indirectly lead to her demise.

Depends on your view of what is motivation behind a person behaviour to succeed...

 

[Vindiesel]

My brother has an undergraduate degree in phycology. there are psychopaths. and sociopaths, we Aspies are neither, getting labeled as one Is one of the reasons, I have no intention of ever getting. officially labelled.

Same here… mental health labels exacerbate ignorance

 

[Vindiesel]

Results revealed a significant positive relationship between anxious attachment style and both primary and secondary psychopathy; avoidant attachment was significantly correlated with secondary psychopathy alone; and, anxious-avoidant attachment was associated with both primary and secondary psychopathy.

To extend Niche and Jung theory, we review theory of attachment. For example, Jung disagreed with Freud's focus on sexuality as a key motivating behavioural force, as well as believing Freud's concept of the unconscious as too limited and overly negative.
Theory is echnoring a narcissist is best ammo but don't think they affect autistic people same way, I may be wrong but I've noticed spectrum people react to abuse differently.

Overview. Antisocial personality disorder, sometimes called sociopathy, is a mental health condition in which a person consistently shows no regard for right and wrong and ignores the rights and feelings of others.

Clinical observations at ASH have suggested 4 possible subtypes of psychopathy: narcissistic, borderline, sadistic, and antisocial. Issues related to the conceptualization of psychopathy are addressed, recognizing that additional data are needed to understand the observed variations in cases of psychopathy.

Psychopaths are classified as people with little or no conscience but are able to follow social conventions when it suits their needs. Sociopaths have a limited, albeit weak, ability to feel empathy and remorse.

Being Whitechapel a slum at the time of the crimes, if Jack the Ripper was born there his childhood was probably not a happy one, living in grueling misery and degradation. (Is resource for identifying mother/child relationship and father/child) Freud does have valid point on sex, because even if not directly murdering his wife, he indirectly lead to her demise.

Depends on your view of what is motivation behind a person behaviour to succeed, so in case of lawyers we refer to sociopath but men are driven by sex so it's less hampering behaviour, deviant in obscuring legal system is also criminal but in sense that can't prosecute...
Debatable

Now your conflating psychopathy with aspd. You can be neurotypical and be diagnosed with aspd. Psychopathy is a brain wiring difference just like autism is. The equivalence would be if you have autism you have learning disabilities. Which is incorrect.

I don’t agree with creating unicorn specificity of different personality disorders because it muddies the water with increased level of ignorance which is disingenuous to the authenticity of the persons individualism. Either you have psychopathy or secondary trait pyschopathy (aka the archaic term sociopathy) or you have aspd. All in which are separate. There is a capacity to have autism/aspd below: