The research, by academics at Sheffield Hallam University, describes the lived experiences of empathy amongst autistic people and their reflections on the stereotype that autistic people do not feel empathy.
Most participants (78 per cent) felt they experienced ‘hyper-empathy', an emotional response so powerful and uncontrollable that it causes distress.
Comments from participants included: “I absorb other people’s emotions, and I almost know how people are feeling before they are aware of it themselves.” and “I feel empathy so much that it’s painful.”
The findings challenge the misconceptions around autistic people and the persisting stereotype that autistic people lack empathy.
Dr Diarmuid Verrier from Sheffield Hallam University said: “Our findings are particularly valuable as they show how nuanced and unique each autistic person’s experience of empathy is. This is something that can be missed if people rely on stereotypes about what autistic people are like.
“This research is based on work carried out by one of the students on our MSc Developmental Psychology, Lesley Kimber, who is deeply interested in autism.”
The research looked at the diverse ways autistic people experience empathy, with some participants reporting that they do not feel empathy, and others reporting they do but find it difficult to understand or express these feelings.
A key theme from the findings was that for some autistic people empathy is conditional, they were more likely to feel empathy for people close to them, animals or other autistic people.
Other participants felt that empathy took effort due to subtle, unwritten social cues and the differences in how non-autistic and autistic people express themselves.
They felt it was a skill which could be learned as they came up with compensatory practices to become empathic, one participant felt they had grown more empathetic with age and life experience.
Within the research, participants reflected on how these misconceptions affected them and cause harm: “I think it is a stereotype which causes a great deal of harm, and I am especially upset when I hear trained psychologists assume a person cannot be autistic because they have empathy.”
