Autistic Hyperempathy: Myth or Reality?

When emotional sensitivity challenges stereotypes.

One of the most persistent misconceptions about autism is that autistic individuals lack empathy. This perception, widely propagated by early theories such as Baron-Cohen’s “mind blindness” framework (Baron-Cohen et al., 1985), has contributed to a dehumanising and inaccurate view of autistic profiles.

However, decades of testimony and scientific research have gradually revealed a more nuanced reality: contrary to the myth, some autistic individuals show a particularly intense affective empathy — to the point of experiencing extreme distress in response to the suffering of others. This phenomenon, sometimes referred to as hyperempathy, challenges traditional models of empathy and urges us to reconsider our assumptions about autistic experience.

🔍 The Components of Empathy: Cognitive vs Affective

Empathy comprises at least two distinct components:

• Cognitive empathy: the ability to instinctively understand what someone else is thinking or feeling, based on external cues.

• Affective empathy: the capacity to feel emotions and sensations with or for another person, often experienced physically.

Research shows that autistic people may sometimes exhibit reduced cognitive empathy, while their affective empathy remains intact — or even heightened (Smith, 2009; Rogers et al., 2007). This dissociation is now well documented in the literature and may explain certain social misunderstandings.

No — autistic people do not lack affective empathy.

🧠 Hyperempathy and Neuroimaging: What the Brain Reveals

Several imaging studies have shown that brain regions associated with affective empathy, such as the amygdala and the insula, are activated in autistic individuals, particularly when observing others in pain (Fan et al., 2014; Bird et al., 2010).In a study by Silani et al. (2008), autistic participants showed emotional responses comparable to non-autistic controls, but with differences in the social processing circuits involved.

This suggests that the emotional response is present, but processed differently — and sometimes without using the typical expressive codes. The “deficit” may in fact lie in the neurotypical ability to perceive emotions expressed differently from their own, rather than in any absence of autistic empathy.

🤝 The “Double Empathy Problem”

Damian Milton (2012) proposed a theory that has since gained wide acceptance in autism research: the Double Empathy Problem. According to this view, misunderstandings between autistic and non-autistic people do not stem from a one-sided deficit, but from a reciprocal lack of understanding — including a neurotypical failure to empathise.

This perspective is supported by Crompton et al. (2020), who demonstrated that autistic people communicate very effectively with one another, but may face challenges in cross-neurotype interactions.

In other words, autistic empathy exists, but it doesn’t follow the channels expected by neurotypical social norms — and vice versa.

📚 Research on Autistic Hyperempathy

Several studies directly explore the phenomenon of hyperempathy:

• Smith (2009) found that some autistic individuals were more emotionally affected by others’ distress than non-autistic controls, to the point of experiencing physical discomfort.

• Berthoz & Hill (2005) highlighted emotional hypersensitivity in autistic participants, marked by intense emotional experience and reduced regulation.

• Hadjikhani et al. (2014) observed increased activation in the somatosensory cortex and insula in autistic adults when shown faces expressing pain — suggesting a visceral, intensified empathic response.

🐾 A Look at Animal Relationships: Empathy Beyond Human Codes

Escalona et al. (2002) found that autistic children often more easily express affection, gentleness, and care towards animals than in human interactions. This reflects a form of intuitive, non-verbalised empathy.Such findings reinforce the view that difficulties in autistic empathy stem more from a cultural mismatch than from a lack of emotional depth.

💬 Testimonies from the Field

Many autistic adults report emotional collapses triggered by others’ distress, or an inability to separate themselves from the suffering they perceive. This lived experience of hyperempathy may lead to social withdrawal — not out of disinterest, but as a means of emotional self-preservation.

“I feel so much of what others feel that it overwhelms me — and then I can’t even tell what I’m feeling myself. I feel like a sponge.”

🧭 Conclusion

Far from being a “deficit of empathy,” autism reveals an alternative way of experiencing emotion — sometimes more raw, more confusing, and harder for neurotypicals to perceive.In some cases, this empathy is so intense that it becomes a trigger for avoidance or burnout. To speak of autistic hyperempathy is not to overgeneralise — it is to acknowledge a real, documented, and meaningful phenomenon.

It is not the absence of empathy we must question — but the overly narrow frameworks we use to define it.

📖 Key Scientific References

• Baron-Cohen, S., Leslie, A. M., & Frith, U. (1985). Does the autistic child have a “theory of mind”? Cognition, 21(1), 37–46.

• Bird, G., Silani, G., Brindley, R., White, S., Frith, U., & Singer, T. (2010). Empathic brain responses in insula are modulated by levels of alexithymia in autism. Brain, 133(5), 1515–1525.

• Fan, Y., Duncan, N. W., de Greck, M., & Northoff, G. (2014). Is there a core neural network in empathy? Social Neuroscience, 6(2), 135–145.

• Milton, D. E. M. (2012). On the ontological status of autism: the “double empathy problem”. Disability & Society, 27(6), 883–887.

• Crompton, C. J., et al. (2020). Neurodivergent intersubjectivity: Distinctive features of how autistic people create shared understanding. Autism, 24(8), 2145–2155.

• Smith, A. (2009). The empathy imbalance hypothesis of autism: A theoretical approach to cognitive and emotional empathy in autistic development. The Psychological Record, 59, 489–510.

• Berthoz, S., & Hill, E. L. (2005). The validity of using self-reports to assess emotion regulation abilities in adults with autism spectrum disorder. European Psychiatry, 20(3), 291–298.

• Hadjikhani, N., et al. (2014). Emotional contagion for pain is intact in autism spectrum disorders. Translational Psychiatry, 4(1), e343.

• Escalona, A., Field, T., Singer-Strunck, R., Cullen, C., & Hartshorn, K. (2002). Brief report: Improvements in the behavior of children with autism following massage therapy. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 31(5), 513–516.