Sociopath Community

So it sounds like they CAN feel it if they want.. but generally, it's not their first go-to thing to do after they observer or learn about something.

So perhaps your dog dies. Your first thought can be to empathize about the dog, or you can choose to look foward to no more dog hair. 

It makes perfect sense, and it might also mean that sociopathy can be learned. I think it could also be argued, then, that it's pretty much... a mindset. A way of looking at things.

I can't seem to wrap my head around the differences between sympathy and empathy. To me, they would be the same.

I think they are

by Turncoat

The notion of psychopaths having low affective empathy with functioning cognitive empathy is also an existing explanation.

Quoting the wiki (because I'm lazy and this isn't a school paper):

"A difference in distribution between affective and cognitive empathy has been observed in various conditions. Psychopathy, schizophrenia, and narcissism have been associated with impairments in affective but not cognitive empathy, whereas bipolar disorder and borderline traits have been associated with deficits in cognitive but not affective empathy. Autism spectrum disorders have been associated with various combinations, including deficits in cognitive empathy as well as deficits in both cognitive and affective empathy. Even in people without conditions such as these, the balance between affective and cognitive empathy varies."

This at least resembles what I learned in Abnormal Psych. Speculative science is fun. At the very least I can verify that it seems to fit my schizophrenia case.

Psychopaths do not feel affective empathy until they choose to. Thus, the empathy switch.

What you've been claiming is that you feel affective empathy as often and as easily as any average person, but can turn it off at will when you choose to. When it's not off, you can still feel it normally.

Psychopaths do not feel empathy on a regular basis like that. There is no empathy in most situations.

The way I've had sympathy and empathy explained to me is that sympathy is when you recognize someone's situation is bad and acknowledge it somehow.  Like, "Ah, that sucks."

Empathy is when you "feel their pain" more than just saying so.  It hits you in the gut, I'm told.  Kind of like when watching a sad movie and you break out crying, rather than just saying, "Oh, that was sad."  It's sympathy + feeling the emotion (not just mirroring it).

It makes sense, I think.  I've found I can "choose" to put myself in someone's shoes like that, but I still don't find myself automatically doing so like some people seem to do.  I'm not sure if it's mirroring or actual "empathy" either.  It also doesn't seem as "overpowering" as some people make it out to be.  Sometimes I wonder if those people aren't full of shit, though... lol

They're not, sympathy is caring for how others feel. Empathy is feeling how others feel.

by Daddy

Quoting the wiki (because I'm lazy and this isn't a school paper)

You are aware that I could go into that Wiki and make it say whatever the fuck I want it to say right? You're basically basing your entire theory on someone that was posted by some random guy on the net, with no valid checks and balances. Turncoat, you're smarter than that.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3427869/ That's the peered article the wiki is referencing.

And it should be noted that it's using dated theories (the peer reviewed article was written in 2011).

Even beyond that the measures used in that study does not negate any of the more recent studies conducted. The fact is, the people in that article are working on the belief that psychopaths have that region of the brain permanently inhibited as if they had damage to the anterior rostral prefrontal cortex and/or temporal poles. This is no longer the case.

No, They're not...

Sympathy: feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune."they had great sympathy for the flood victims"

Empathy: the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.