Anemone's Research Emporium

Who cares? Revisiting empathy in Asperger Syndrome

Anemone Cerridwen
April 19, 2009

I posted this on a thread on WrongPlanet in December, 2008, and it has been blogged elsewhere, including at Who's Planet Is It Anyway? But I may as well include it here for completeness, with some minor updates.

Somebody likes us!

The paper: Kimberley Rogers, Isabel Dziobek, Jason Hassenstab, Oliver T. Wolf and Antonio Convit, 2007. Who cares? Revisiting empathy in Asperger Syndrome. Journal of Autism and Develepmental Disorders 37:709-715.

Abstract A deficit in empathy has consistently been cited as a central characteristic of Asperger syndrome (AS), but previous research on adults has predominantly focused on cognitive empathy, effectively ignoring the role of affective empathy. We administered the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), a multi-dimensional measure of empathy, and the Strange Stories test to 21 adults with AS and 21 matched controls. Our data show that while the AS group scored lower on the measures of cognitive empathy and theory of mind, they were no different from controls on one affective empathy scale of the IRI (empathic concern), and scored higher than controls on the other (personal distress). Therefore, we propose that the issue of empathy in AS should be revisited.

Yes! Yes! Somebody likes us!

Unlike the EQ, which was created to demonstrate that autistic people are lower in empathy, the IRI was created to measure empathy in anybody. Autism wasn't even considered back in the day. Neither were any other specific demographic groups - the IRI is a generic measure of empathy divided into four distinct scales, measuring fantasy empathy, perspective taking, empathic concern, and personal distress. I posted a thread on WrongPlanet some time ago about the IRI, and while our scores were below the means posted with the original scale, they were still more or less in the middle.

"The primary goal of this paper was to begin to describe the nature of both cognitive and affective empathy among individuals with AS, a group that, despite little direct empirical support, has been labeled as lacking in empathy."

In other words, people assume we are low in empathy, but they don't usually bother to check. Very scientific, yah!

The researchers found that their adult AS subjects scored lower on perspective taking and a ToM test (Happé's Strange Stories, a series of stories with twists to them, which is probably a reasonably good way of seeing if people have a hard time figuring out what's going on in social situations); they scored the same on empathic concern and even higher on personal distress. And when they controlled for ToM (=took it into account), their AS subjects did just as well on perspective taking. In other words, we may not know what's going on, but we care, we really do.

"Although this finding is at variance with previous reports of deficits in empathy in individuals with AS (. . .), it is in keeping with anecdotal reports from parents and clinicians that suggest that autistic individuals can be very caring."

Aww, gee. Thank you. And this last bit is what really gets my approval: the authors get that bad theory can be used against us out there in the real world.

"A description of individuals with AS that includes 'deficits in empathy' as a central characteristic carries with it several moral implications and may even lead to adverse social consequences. In light of the findings presented here, we propose that the issue of empathy deficits in AS be revisited and expanded to include more multi-dimensional analyses."

What really impressed me is the tact with which the researchers made their point. Wish I knew how to be so tactful, and yet still get my point across.

I sure hope someone's listening to these guys.