A still-quite-popular belief about autistic people is that we lack empathy.

Since my own experiences have told me this isn’t the case, or that it certainly isn’t as simple as that, I began to think about this in more detail.

Perhaps what we mostly lack is socially approved ways of expressing fellow-feeling. And this then gets construed as lacking empathy (Milton, 2012).

Plus, sometimes, feelings of overwhelm can result in dissociation (common to many autistic people, including myself) which, at times, may give others the appearance we don’t care. Though it may be rather that we cared too much, and had to withdraw.

This isn’t the same as lacking empathy.

Socially approved empathy

As a child, I noticed that some of the usual, acceptable ways of expressing empathy can have side effects besides what’s ‘on the label’ (that says it’s all about making things better for the other person, and nothing else).

When I was on the receiving end, I sometimes felt a strong aversion to certain people being ‘kind’ or ‘nice’ to me – and then horribly guilty and ungrateful, as I had no idea why I felt this way.

Now, as an adult, I notice there's nothing on that label about social positioning – or asserting power, or signalling submission.

Nothing about pleasing and catering to the right people, in the right ways and at the right times. Nothing about affirming and reinforcing power structures.

Nothing about virtue signalling.

I now think my childhood self might have been responding to incongruence... my skin prickling.

Unorthodox fellow-feeling

Autistic people often fail to respond ‘correctly’ to social hierarchies (Chevallier et al., 2012). Could this, I wonder, extend to empathy, as well?

Many of us feel huge compassion – even quite painfully – for those more vulnerable than us.

They don’t need to be like us. It could be children, animals, plants, trees, octopuses, sharks, other planets, avatars, our plushies; yes, even inanimate objects (Savarese, 2014).

Autistic people also tend to have a stronger sense of social justice than is usual (Fletcher-Watson & Bird, 2020).

Overall, it seems our empathy is quite unorthodox!

Empathy as a virtue – or not

Empathy is usually treated as a personal trait – something you either have or you don’t. The theory goes that if you have it, you’re virtuous; if you don’t, you’re flawed.

But research shows that empathy is deeply shaped by social position.

People with less power have to monitor the emotions, intentions, and comfort of those above them (Kraus, Piff, & Keltner, 2011). This makes sense. When your security depends on the favor of others, you learn to smile, soften your voice, reassure, defer, and make others comfortable – even if it comes at the expense of your own needs.

This is where things get confusing.

In hierarchical societies, the enactment of empathy often travels upwards – by force of habit, conditioning, and survival. But our more natural feelings of empathy tend to travel downwards, towards those who are more vulnerable. We're a deeply social species, after all!

Our conditioning, it seems, works against both human inclination and human reason. And, rather like a rather toxic kind of CBT, habit overrides instinct. Those destined to have more power undergo a sort of empathy lobotomy. They wish to receive genuine care, but the system trains them out of feeling it for others. It becomes dangerous for them to do so.

And there are many other ways in which empathy is context-dependent, too.

Humans tend to become a lot less empathetic when we’re in a hurry, or stressed, or feeling in danger (Darley & Batson, 1973).¹ And when we perceive a use for someone, or need something from them – then, again, our fellow feeling for them is quite likely to go out the window (Batson, 2011).

So while, in human society, we may enact empathy to those above us, by handing them things – status, goods, resources, the best chair at the table, the biggest steak – our feelings tend to be rather mixed about it.

All this said, if you're not right at the top of the food chain and therefore above caring what others think of you, you won’t get much social approval if you don’t have the appearance of caring for those more vulnerable than you.

But the word ‘appearance’ is important here!

Look what happened to Princess Diana when she truly cared about those injured and killed by landmines – having, as a young woman, been hustled away from any ‘real’ politics. The establishment thought she'd lost her mind. They called her a 'loose cannon'.

Taboos

The truth is, we’re all (autistic or not) pretty burned out by catering constantly to those above us in the hierarchy – pre-empting their needs, feelings and wishes, handing them things.

To be fair, we haven’t got much energy for another struggle – and struggle it would be!

Because truly caring, truly listening – the sort that might lead to structural change – is quite taboo.

It starts to appear that we aren’t meant to really listen to those below us (whether to children, your employees, disabled people, or those in countries pushed into abject poverty). I've deduced that you’re supposed to, from a great height (and with little interest in their self-reported experience) tell them we know best – and not to worry their heads about important policy matters.

To return to the point about outcomes, I think the proof is in the pudding. If this approach worked towards making people’s lives better, I believe it would have done so by now.

Autistic people are famous for saying things that are taboo.

In fact, we often show things up as taboos by inadvertently saying them.

“You can’t say that!” is a common phrase told to autistic children – or even adults – who haven’t learned that lesson yet... or, perhaps, who never will.

Rewards and punishments

Everyone in our society receives thorough and early training, both in our families and at school, to respond predictably to punishments and rewards.

The gradual effect of all these extrinsic motivators is to pluck your ‘motivation’ dial right out of your heart (apologies, as I tend to think quite graphically and in metaphors) and stick it somewhere more accessible – somewhere it can be manipulated. On the wall, perhaps.

But, of course, only by those who have the resources – the power – to reward or punish you.

It’s a clever system!

Our focus shifts away from connection and other people’s wellbeing, and onto ‘what do I get out of it?’ or ‘what will happen to me if I don’t?’

Those without money or influence hold nothing in their hands to reward or punish others with. No sticks, no carrots. No tall stool or ladder to get up to that dial on the wall.

They also don't need to have their dial plucked out of them quite so radically, since a) their empathy can be quite useful for us when we misbehave, and b) we have a whole bunch of permanent motivators we can use on them; like shelter, food, their basic survival, etc.

While the more privileged you are, the higher your dial is placed and the more it takes to turn it.

All of which might explain the general non-responsiveness of those with power to pleas of empathy on behalf of those with less.

Conformity

I've noticed how rewards and punishments can go a bit wrong with autistics. We very often fail to respond to them in the expected way – in fact sometimes, we don’t respond at all.² Which, very often, isn't so much rebellion as an inability to conform.

And when the usual incentives and disincentives don’t work on a set of people, the response has historically not been to question the system, but to escalate it.

This is not to say that people from marginalized groups are not often themselves ableist, racism, and misogynistic. To some extent or other, we've all been socialized – after all, we live here too!

Rules that don’t make sense

As we've seen, in hierarchical societies, consideration tends to quietly flow upwards towards those with status and authority – away from the poor, marginalized, and less powerful. Just like other resources do.

Rules and laws are unevenly applied, and often contradictory.

Autistic people are frequently criticised for our black and white thinking – which can easily happen around inconsistent and unclear rules. To us, all we’re doing is pointing out certain errors of logic. Naturally, we think this might be helpful. And when people respond that everything’s perfectly fine and we’re just making trouble, we’re genuinely perplexed. Either we’re crazy, or everyone else is!

One of the perks of power, I’ve observed over time, is that rules don’t apply to you. In extreme cases, not even things like paying taxes or being answerable to any nation’s laws.

But all the while, to my mind, that phrase “with great power comes great responsibility” ought to be taken literally. My mind can’t comprehend why it isn’t, while being so oft-cited.

The moral seriousness of autistic people often gets pathologized as rigidity, naivety, or lack of social nuance. I feel it could simply reflect a form of ethical consistency that clashes with hierarchical social norms – norms that expect empathy to be selective, strategic, and status-aware (Milton, 2012).

If we’re told honesty is important, we tell the truth. If we’re taught kindness matters, we try to be kind and fair.

If our attention is brought to suffering, we’ll likely care most about those who are the most vulnerable right now – children, animals, the sick, the excluded, the spider in the bath, or the earthworm on a sunny road – rather than those who look quite comfortable already.

We may, however, often fail – sometimes quite spectacularly – at things like softening criticism for a superior or peer, flattering the right people for social advancement, disguising our discomfort to protect someone’s ego, or understanding why social punishment often follows even when we’ve done nothing nominally wrong.

And we’re truly bewildered (especially the first times in our lives that this happens) when we’re told not to lie but then punished for telling the truth. While others are being rewarded for lying, right in front of our eyes. This is puzzling indeed!

Types of empathy

In psychology, empathy often gets divided into cognitive and affective forms.

‘Cognitive empathy’ refers to the ability to guess what someone else is thinking or feeling. ‘Affective empathy’ refers to feeling it with them.

Given that the literal meaning of the word ‘empathy’ is ‘feeling in’, I’d argue that what we’re terming ‘cognitive empathy’ may not be truly classifiable as a form of empathy at all, since it can happen without any accompanying inner feeling. No ‘pathos’ and no ‘in’.³

In society, however, it often matters less whether someone actually cares than whether they appear to care – and this is where autistic people can fall down.

If we weren’t thinking of you, we won’t pretend we were. And if we were thinking of you, we may forget to mention it – missing opportunities to earn social kudos.

None of this means we don’t feel things deeply.

Words vs actions

Autistic kindness often shows up in actions more than in words.

A few months ago, I didn’t tell my autistic friend that I was sad for them when their family broke up and they had to move out with their son.

They asked me for help with their move into temporary accommodation, which I did. I was pleased to be of use, and happy to spend some time with my friend. We talked a lot about things, in our usual 'autistic' style. This involves one person talking and the other listening for a bit, then we swap about, and so on (what's considered normal conversation, to me, feels like a fast game of ping-pong where the other person is very good at swerving the ball). We also went to the lawyer together, since two sets of ears are better than one.

Three weeks ago, they were finally assigned an apartment. I texted to find out when they were in their new home and if they needed any cleaning or moving boxes, and then I went to help (they’ve helped me on other occasions). Then we weren’t in touch for about two weeks.

I messaged last Monday to say I was passing through town and, I asked, were they home, and should I pass by to say hello? They answered saying they had a cold, so I should probably stay away. A few days later, and we’ve now arranged to meet up next week Friday for a walk in the park.

Looking at the scenario I’ve described, we did very little in the form of empathy signalling. We also did what we were both capable of in terms of empathy enactment. No more, no less; and nothing was promised that couldn’t be accomplished.

This, I think, is autistic friendship. We know we care for one another. No one is offended. My friend’s kitchen got cleaned.

Benefits for everyone!

Instead of autistic people lacking empathy, it seems our empathy may simply be expressed differently – both in its form, and its direction of travel.

But in a culture that confuses politeness with goodness and powerfulness with deservedness, this difference often gets judged, or even punished.

It starts to look as though autistic people aren’t so much ‘empathy impaired’ as misaligned with our current social system, which requires emotional and physical labor from those with less power, while excusing emotional indifference and performative ‘pretending to care’ – without taking very much action to do so – from those at the top.

I can’t help wondering if a bit more ‘autistic empathy’ might benefit everyone, and not just autistic people and neurodivergent communities.

It could lead to more balance, and a greater trust and connection between us all.

❤️

Footnotes

1. The most compelling example I can think of for how we switch off our empathy for someone we need something from, is how we treat the animals we raise for their meat.

2. The PDA profile, often concurrent with autism, is particularly associated with an anxiety-driven resistance to external demands, including rewards and punishments (O’Nions et al., 2018).

3. Empathy comes from Greek empatheia: em- ('in') + pathos ('feeling') – literally 'feeling into'.

References

Milton, D. (2012). On the ontological status of autism: The “double empathy problem”. Disability & Society, 27(6), 883–887. Argues that autistic empathy is often misread because social understanding norms are mutual, asymmetric, and power-laden rather than universal.

Savarese, R. J. (2014). Reasonable people: A memoir of autism and adoption. Other Press. Explores autistic forms of empathy, including compassion directed toward non-human and unconventional objects.

Chevallier, C., Kohls, G., Troiani, V., Brodkin, E. S., & Schultz, R. T. (2012). The social motivation theory of autism. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16(4), 231–239. Proposes that reduced sensitivity to social reward and status cues alters responses to hierarchy.

Fletcher-Watson, S., & Bird, G. (2020). Autism and empathy: What are the real links? Autism, 24(1), 3–6. Reviews evidence that autistic people often show strong moral concern and social justice orientation.

Simler, K., & Hanson, R. (2018). The elephant in the brain: Hidden motives in everyday life. Oxford University Press. Argues that human motivations are often unconscious and socially concealed, even from ourselves.

Kraus, M. W., Piff, P. K., & Keltner, D. (2011). Social class as culture: The convergence of resources and rank in the social realm. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20(4), 246–250. Demonstrates that lower-power individuals attend more to others’ emotions due to dependence and risk.

Darley, J. M., & Batson, C. D. (1973). “From Jerusalem to Jericho”: A study of situational and dispositional variables in helping behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 27(1), 100–108. Shows empathy and helping sharply decrease under time pressure and situational stress.

Batson, C. D. (2011). Altruism in humans. Oxford University Press. Examines how empathy competes with self-interest, instrumental goals, and power dynamics.

Smith, R. H., Parrott, W. G., Diener, E. F., Hoyle, R. H., & Kim, S. H. (2007). Dispositional envy. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25(8), 1007–1020. Finds that higher-status individuals elicit more envy, resentment, and hostile affect.

Lovaas, O. I. (1987). Behavioral treatment and normal educational and intellectual functioning in young autistic children. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 55(1), 3–9. Documents the early normalization of extreme aversive behavioural techniques in autism intervention.

Wolfe, P. (2006). Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native. Journal of Genocide Research, 8(4), 387–409. Explains how coercive assimilation systems pathologised Indigenous resistance to imposed hierarchies.

Bird, G., Silani, G., Brindley, R., White, S., Frith, U., & Singer, T. (2010). Empathic brain responses in insula are modulated by levels of alexithymia but not autism. Brain, 133(5), 1515–1525. Shows intact affective empathy neural responses in autistic people despite atypical expression.

Blair, R. J. R. (2005). Responding to the emotions of others: Dissociating forms of empathy through the study of typical and psychiatric populations. Consciousness and Cognition, 14(4), 698–718. Distinguishes cognitive empathy from affective empathy, highlighting their dissociation in psychopathy.

Izuma, K., Saito, D. N., & Sadato, N. (2011). Processing of social and monetary rewards in the human striatum. Neuron, 58(2), 284–294. Demonstrates that non-autistic people increase prosocial behaviour when it is socially visible.

O’Nions, E., Eaton, J., Gould, J., & Happé, F. (2018). Pathological demand avoidance: Exploring the behavioural profile. Autism, 22(4), 454–469. Describes a PDA profile in which conventional rewards and punishments often fail to motivate behaviour.