Autists vs. Psychopaths
Charlie Gordon is not Tom Ripley.
With all respect to Thomas Sheridan, who has researched more about psychopathy than probably anyone else on the planet, I strongly dispute his hypothesized correlation between autism and psychopathy in the book Puzzling People: The Labyrinth of the Psychopath.
Granted, this is only a very small section of the book- which is excellent overall and well-worth reading- but as a high-functioning aspie I do feel a bit defensive about it. I certainly don’t wish to be associated with such predatory lunatics, just because our disorders may share some outwardly similar characteristics.
I can only speak for myself in this matter of course, but the symptoms I experience/suffer from with Aspegers’s do not seem at all similar to the psychopathic behavioral markers described in the book.
It’s also important to note that none of the listed correlations relate back to the Five Absolute Psychopathic Traits. They do not apply to all psychopaths, nor do they even apply to all autists. Thus, while there is indeed some limited overlap, I argue that these are examples of convergent evolution from widely disparate disorders, and not due to Sheridan’s speculation that psychopathy is “autism gone malignant” with them representing opposite extremes of the same disorder.
Autism already has its own relatively well-understood spectrum which does not end in psychopathy- quite the opposite, in fact. The most extreme autists are not capable of the cunning social-shapeshifting that comes natural to psychopaths; they are unable to function in society at all and require constant care from others. Likewise, the high-functioning aspies, such as myself, are far more similar to normal-functioning humans than we are to psychopaths. We have rich inner emotional worlds- we just have difficulty expressing those emotions in a normal manner1. But we do feel very deeply- love and grief have ruled my own life more than any other emotions, and these are precious emotions that a psychopath is incapable of feeling. Ever.
All of the similarities between autism and psychopathy are discussed in Chapter 3 of the book. The first one listed is an observation by Alison Gunson, founder of the Narcissistic Sociopath Survivor Support Group on Facebook, who writes- “Whilst there may well be a link between autism and psychopathy as ‘the Id’ (the existential worlds) of both are so self absorbing- we all know autistic people do not manipulate whereas a psychopath is the master. Autists do not perceive or need ‘enablers’, a psychopath cannot exist without them.”
Now, this alone is enough to dispute any relation between the two- autists are solitary, and do not require much human contact at all, let alone experience the insatiable need to control others that so dominates a psychopath’s inner world.
But even the initial observation about our “Ids” both being self-absorbed is only superficial. I’ve thankfully “grown out” of a lot of the worst symptoms of Asperger’s thanks to a combination of excellent therapy and simple maturity, but when I was much younger, my “autistic obsession” was dinosaurs. I loved them. I still do, of course, but back then everything had to be dinosaurs. All of my toys were dinosaur related, I loved dinosaur media more than anything, and whenever at play I would often pretend to be a dinosaur. It was, as stated by Gunson, entirely self-absorbing. But notice how this self-absorption manifested- with me falling into the world of dinosaurs. I was losing myself in something else that interested me.
The psychopath is the opposite of this. As a rule they are not interested in anything other than themselves, ever. They do not have real hobbies- beyond those they temporarily adopt as part of their newest false persona- and are only interested in manipulating other people into validating their own existence. They are wholly self-absorbed, whereas the autist’s supposed self-absorption is actually absorption in a specific subject.
Thus, while the autist’s self-absorption is selfish- any conversation with an autist will have them immediately and unsubtly steering you towards their preferred topic of interest, be it dinosaurs, trains, or Atlantis- it is not narcissistic. Whenever I talked to someone about dinosaurs, it was not to “show off” my knowledge of dinosaurs- thus making it about how oh-so-intelligent I was- it was simply sharing knowledge of a topic that interested me deeply. My fault was not realizing that others would not find the biogeography of the Jurassic as interesting as I did2, but there was no ill intent in this.
Several other similarities between autists and psychopaths are listed in the chapter, which we will review in brief detail.
Compulsive Behavior/Sameness: psychopaths are described as extreme adherence to rules and rituals which the psychopath will expect others to abide by, and will actively prevent others from interfering with their emplaced system.
Autists do this as well- I remember flipping out when my father, on recommendation from the therapist, took a different route to school. I screamed and sobbed and writhed in my seat, because the specific route we took was, incomprehensibly, very very important to me at the time.
I would posit that the difference between autists and psychopaths in this regard is that the rituals of autists are due to a stunting of behavioral plasticity, while in psychopaths it’s just another control tactic, designed to keep their victim under tight psycho-emotional dependency- they may well shed their “extreme adherence to rituals” like an insect’s exoskeleton when they acquire a new target.
Restricted Behavior: Psychopaths “see no reason to take an interest in matters and subjects beyond the scope of what their machinations require. They only need to know what it takes to keep a particular scam going. Psychopaths have no natural sense of inquisitiveness or wonderment; every aspect of their existence is on a need to know basis.”
This flat-out does not apply to autists, who are extraordinarily inquisitive- about very specific subjects. The autist is someone who, upon latching onto the topic of World War II fighter aircraft, will spend the rest of their life studying them, to the point of knowing the difference between what specific bolts were used on the airframes of a P-38 Lightning and a P-47 Thunderbolt. The restriction is that they will, mostly, become only interested in World War II fighter aircraft. I thankfully was blessed with being able to hold a wide variety of interests, but my main focus as a child was unequivocally dinosaurs, and little else interested me beyond how it could possibly relate to the vanished terrible lizards.
That said, autists do engage in incredibly restricted behaviors, such as only being able to wear certain kinds of clothing (as a child, I could not bear to wear jeans and still avoid them whenever possible). But this, again, is due more to a lack of behavioral plasticity, and not a single-minded focus on subverting a human target to be under our control.
The psychopath is self-restricting depending on their target, only learning what they need to know to infiltrate their target’s mind. The autist’s restrictions are not very flexible and are imposed upon them for very unclear reasons.
I’ll also roll up the correlation of Unusual Eating Habits into this section, because for autists, the odd dietary restrictions are there for the same reasons as the other bizarre restrictions- lack of behavioral plasticity. Trying new foods is still a chore for me, because psychologically I’m just not wired for culinary curiosity. I know the foods I like and see no reason to add to the menu. The psychopath’s dietary habits aren’t delved into in much detail in the book, but the mention of how their partners/enablers will go crazy trying to cope with it makes me believe it is yet another control tactic that they may drop on a dime when they find a new victim.
High levels of perception and attention: There is no correlation between the high perceptiveness of a psychopath and that of an autist.
While autists are highly perceptive of certain physical sensations- the coarseness of denim or wool, or the texture of rice in one’s hands, or the feeling of some unpleasant food matter on the tongue- we are generally not very in tune with other’s emotions. As stated above, this is not due to our inability to feel emotions ourselves- we emphatically feel very deeply. We just have trouble interfacing with others due to a lack of social perception.
The psychopath, meanwhile, is all social perception. They pay extremely close attention to every aspect of an individual’s social signals, in order to mirror their behavior closely enough to take psychological possession of them as yet another plaything.
Persona switching: Autists do not usually craft multiple personalities, there is no correlation between them and a psychopath in this regard.
A personal account is given in the book from a woman named Terri who stated that upon returning to her (unbeknownst to her at the time) psychopathic husband at an airport after a long absence, from the opposite direction he was expecting her to approach, he simply stared at her for several seconds, appraising her “almost like a reptile, shark or an insect studies an object in cold examination” before he smiled in recognition and hugged her. The obvious implication here is that her husband actually forgot who she was for a moment, glitching out figuring out what persona he needed to present to his wife (who, it later turned out, he had been cheating on with several other women throughout their marriage). The author compares it to the lag-time in a software program, where their brains have to locate the persona-simulation crafted specifically for their victim. They have to “really work at pretending to be normal humans.”
This has never happened to me, ever, and I doubt it is an issue for other autists. I know who the people I love are and immediately recognize their faces when meeting again, unless they have done something drastic to alter their appearance such as wearing lots of makeup or dyeing their hair. It is very unsettling and alien to me that psychopaths cannot instantly do this.
While it does require a lot of energy for me to navigate social situations, leaving me mentally exhausted at the end of a workday, I’m also not “pretending” to be a normal human; my mind is as fully-conscious and fully-feeling as any normal person’s, it just has difficulty expressing itself. I’m malfunctioning, not nonfunctioning the way a psychopath is.
Projection: Psychopaths are stated as using projection to bring down their victims. I’m unsure if this is the right terminology- projection implies that subconsciously the psychopath knows it is a monstrous thing, but Sheridan explicitly rejects the idea that psychopaths can ever feel such deep emotions.
Nevertheless, the examples provided do somewhat resemble things autists would say. “For instance, a psychopathic female walking into a room full of people might blurt out to her friend- who may be more attractive and stylish than the psychopath- “I never realised you had an overbite before… oh, and I love your earrings!”
Now, I’ve said some… phenomenally stupid things in my life, and have accidentally insulted people many, many times. This is due entirely to my poor social skills. I never intend to insult people, and when I realize my words inflicted injury I earnestly apologize to the aggrieved person as soon as possible.
Not so with the psychopath, who says such things very knowingly and deliberately, intending to undermine the psychological security of their victim. Every word out of a psychopath’s mouth is coldly calculated to produce an effect- negative or “positive”- in their chosen victim. This is not the case with autists- I struggle often because there is no aim to my attempts at small-talk. The line between acceptable and unacceptable statements is far hazier to me than it is to a normal person, but I understand that there is a line somewhere. The psychopath also understands there is a line, and knows exactly where it is, and crosses it deliberately when it suits their specific intentions.
Another topic I want to briefly discuss, which was not mentioned as a correlation in the book, is empathy.
Psychopaths feel no empathy whatsoever, just as they cannot feel love or grief. Autists have often been misinterpreted as being unable to feel empathy at all- and perhaps understandably, given how variegated autist responses to human suffering can be. We certainly experience it differently than normal people, but to say we do not feel it at all is incorrect.
I think the answer to the problem of autist empathy lies in animals.
Most autists strongly prefer socializing with animals over humans, perhaps- if I am permitted to speculate a bit- because their emotions are more raw and immediate3, whereas human ones are very complex, multilayered, and hard to understand, even for normal people. Animal therapy is very common for autistic children, ranging from dogs to horses, and they get very good results. For whatever reason, we simply “interface” more easily with animals than with humans.
Psychopaths are just as incapable of loving animals as they are of loving people. It’s true that animal abuse is a strong indication of criminal psychopathy, but non-criminal psychopaths- who, terrifyingly, make up the vast majority of the global psychopath population- don’t show any particular predilection for inflicting physical harm on animals; although the possibility of pet neglect is not mentioned in the book, I’d consider it likely. Overall, though, psychopaths treat animals like objects, just like they do people. Mere tools to be used and discarded at one’s leisure.
Overall, it seems clear that the supposed correlations between autism and psychopathy are just that- vague correlations, which do not withstand closer scrutiny. The psychopath is no more closely related to the autist than a shark is to a dolphin.
The psychopath understands social etiquette perfectly, being its ultimate study. And the psychopath is always deliberate in inflicting emotional injuries. The hapless autist, meanwhile, will do so accidentally, out of a lack of knowledge of social etiquette. Even though I am “high-functioning” I still not-infrequently fall into embarrassing gaffes due to my rudimentary understanding of social etiquette. Again, it is a malfunction in my case and the case of autists in general.
In short:
The autist feels deep emotions and has to learn to the proper social cues to express them; the psychopath is incapable of feeling any emotions whatsoever and must learn to mimic having them in the first place.
The book is still very good though, and I wholly recommend reading it to armor yourself with the knowledge of how psychopaths operate, to hopefully be able to protect yourself against their depredations. They are extremely dangerous, all the more so because most of them are skinsuiting as normal people, not movie killers.
A potentially helpful analogy- one theory is that autism is a “failed domestication” of the human brain. Picture autist brains as mostly normal, but some aspiring Captain Caveman chucked a spear into the cogs and gears so that the autist brain is constantly sparking and smoking a little bit as it struggles to be normal in that halfway between “feral” Neanderthal and “civilized” Homo sapiens. Psychopaths don’t have normal brains at all; they are Chinese Rooms at best, and outright demonically possessed at worst.
I did figure this out eventually of course, and found an arguably “healthy” outlet to vent my intense autistic fascinations- the internet!
This, too, would relate to autism being a “failed domestication”, with autists relating more to animal emotions due to, on a psychological level, being more like them than most people.
In regards to autists and empathy, I'm compelled to share the story of Temple Grandin, who had a huge impact on the livestock industry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Grandin