Sociopath Community

I said I have never been able to feel the emotions of others. Cognitive and affective empathy are different constructs.

So what you're saying is, you can understand what someone is thinking but are incapable of understanding another persons emotions?

Again, without understanding their emotions, you cannot effectively manipulate them. Simply understanding what they may be thinking (Cognitive empathy) would not allow you to understand the emotional impact of what you are saying/doing.

More over to think you can separate cognitive and affective empathy is a fallacy in your understanding of what those terms mean all together.

Mirroring someone is an especially effective means through which to
achieve this, but it does not necessarily imply that one possesses the
capacity to experience their feelings.

While mirroring body language can help build rapport, it takes an understanding of the emotional drives to understand and make an effective impact on their emotional state, this can only be achieved through affective empathy.

So you have pronounced affective empathy, then, yeah?

No, not pronounced. But there when I need it. I am not lacking an understanding of emotions in the way you claim too.

I am quite capable of experiencing affective empathy and I'm just as capable of turning it off. You have a very limited understanding of the disorder you claim to have. But then again, you being low functioning, I wouldn't really expect you to understand.

But that's the crux of it, yeah? I don't fully appreciate the emotional impact of what I am saying and doing. So I get called insensitive and callous, hurtful, or at best, "strong" by those who deal with me in a limited capacity. Affective empathy is the ability to feel the emotions of another person. I experience this only very rarely, and fleetingly. And yet, I have a natural tendency to uncover people's weaknesses, and I am good at manipulation, because I understand the motivations which undergird the thoughts and behaviors of others. This is how I understand cognitive empathy. When juxtaposed with my knowledge of their weak points, it is very easy to persuade and steer people as I see fit.

Uh... are you sure you're a psychopath/sociopath then? Where did you read that they have affective empathy?

I did a quick internet sweep to be sure I hadn't overlooked anything, most results claiming they either lack it, or that it's impaired. Sure you could claim they just "don't understand psychopaths", but what did you look at that confirmed your belief on the topic?

I'm assuming more than just personal experience.

I literally posted these links, on the second page... of this thread.

http://sociopath-community.com/topic/2014-02-24/personality-disorders-and-music-is-there-a-psychological-connection#71440

To see "weakness" in a person is to interpret their emotions in such a way that you can read them. If you can read them, then you are using affective empathy. Affective empathy is nothing more than understanding emotions via your mirror neuron system. It doesn't mean you have to take those feelings on. But to recognize them, you do to some degree need to simulate those emotions in your head to perceive them.

Right, I remember those now. I bookmarked them for "another time" and forgot.

I guess now will be "another time".

I don't fully appreciate the emotional impact of what I am saying and
doing. So I get called insensitive and callous, hurtful, or at best,
"strong" by those who deal with me in a limited capacity.

You and me both buddy... If I had a nickle for every time someone refered to me as cold hearted, detached, emotionless, or callous... Well... I'd have a fuck ton of nickles... That doesn't mean I'm incapable of feeling, it just means that I am capable of turning those feelings off.

It... almost sounds like they want to turn cognitive empathy into affective empathy through conditioning, using their heightened sense of perspective taking against them by making it into a forced automatic, a reflex. That sounds... frightening, almost as if inspired from A Clockwork Orange.

Interesting reads. As a near-chronic skeptic, this part of the first article sums up my suspicion fairly well:

"Million-dollar question

Essi Viding from University College London, who was not involved with the study, said it was an extremely interesting finding, but that it remained unclear whether the psychopathic criminals' experience of empathy felt the same as that of the controls.

"It's dangerous to look at brain activation and say that it means they're empathising. They are able to generate a typical neural response, but that doesn't mean they have the same empathetic experience," Prof Viding told BBC News. "

That's the thing about psychology... it's all theory...

And like all theories they are questioning in the beginning, but this one is rapidly spreading among the psychology and neurology community.