Extreme Male brain theory!

  • I think it shows that what people's perception of what empathy is doesn't really tie up.  My OCED defines it as:

    empathy: (noun) - the ability to understand and share the feelings of others.

    I'm perfectly capable of putting myself "in other people's shoes" and understanding why they may be feeling how they're feeling.  Sometimes I may have to think about it, but it's not in any way difficult or anything.  I think the issue is that I don't tend to react the way they want/expect.  So I think actually the issue isn't that we don't have empathy, which generally people don't really understand what the word means, it's that we don't necessarily meet their needs when they are looking for what they perceive to be empathy.

    At work, I don't see my that my role is to take the customer's problem, which they have gotten themselves into either explicitly or implicitly, and turn it into my problem.  My role is to assist the customer and account team to resolve *their* problem and I'm quite happy to do what I can to assist them.  But many of the ppl I work with etc. seem to expect that I should be treating a customer's problem like it's my problem.  No thanks - I've got enough of my own without taking on other people's!

  • A good article and again it is good to see reiterated the point that we are indeed empathic... it just doesn’t always present itself in a way that others can read or in an acceptable presentation box

  • Thank you DC for your reply, I hope others have taken the trouble to follow the link and read the content, yes a theory but none the less it helps put across what we on the spectrum know only to well, we do have empathy, but when looked at from a neurotypical context it always appears like the findings say we lack empathy, it doesn’t then go in to describe what it means by its findings,

    “They may miss the cues in someone’s facial expression or vocal intonation about how that person is feeling. Or they may have trouble putting themselves in someone else’s shoes, to imagine their thoughts. But when they are told that someone else is suffering, it upsets them and they are moved to want to help that person.

    So autistic people do not lack empathy.

    The second misinterpretation is that autistic people are hyper-male. Again, this is not the case. While our latest study shows that autistic people, on average, have a shift towards a masculinised profile of scores on empathy and systemising tests, they are not extreme males in terms of other typical sex differences. For example, they are not extremely aggressive, but tend to be gentle individuals.

    So autistic people are not hyper-male in general.”

    Sorry to hear you still need more time away, you are missed by me and quite a few others, You often lift my spirits with your replies, 

    take care DC and I hope you eventually feel rested enough to join in again.

    And I should imagine the other “like” is also missing you a great deal.

    Keep being YOU,,,it’s good ()

  • :-)

    (( Good and interesting article, Thank You.

    The trouble with "Theories" is that they are just that - a "Theory" - to the majority/masses... until they are made into a LAW. The good thing is, that this article is interesting, and that They (the writers of the article and persons behind it) are taking a good interest in such things. Positive progress is always good...

    I cannot say much more than that. I am still mostly off this Forum for just now; but I saw this Thread, and that it had no replies, yet one "Like", and I thought that I should say something to support this Thread. I do not know when I can come back again, though -- but of course, Keep on being yourselves, everyone!  ))