The Double Empathy Problem and Perceptions of an Autistic Employee in the Workplace by @KASzechy et al found that more autistic employees accurately interpret the behavior of an autistic employee than non-autistic people
“Autism and Employment Challenges: The Double Empathy Problem and Perceptions of an Autistic Employee in the Workplace” offers more validation of the Double Empathy Problem (DEP) and the Autistic Language Hypothesis.
Addressing the DEP in the workplace would contribute to removing barriers to successful employment for autistic adults.
Autism and Employment Challenges: The Double Empathy Problem and Perceptions of an Autistic Employee in the Workplace | Autism in Adulthood
Results: A significantly greater proportion of autistic participants (50.7%) accurately interpreted the behavior of the employee compared with non-autistic participants (31.2%) (χ = 8.65, p = 0.003). Autistic participants with the highest behavior interpretation scores had significantly higher mean self-reported autism traits scores (M = 26.8) compared with autistic participants who scored lowest on behavior interpretation (M = 19.3, p < 0.001). The opposite relationship was found for non-autistic participants.
Conclusions: Results from this study contribute to evidence supporting the DEP, shifting the paradigm of autistic social functioning away from a deficit model and toward addressing mutual misunderstandings in the autistic/non-autistic social interaction. The pattern of findings between neurotype groups by behavior interpretation abilities on an autism traits measure points to mutual misunderstandings as a clash of neurologically different social cultures. Addressing the DEP in the workplace would contribute to removing barriers to successful employment for autistic adults.
The more the double empathy problem is validated, the more research that supposes to know us from the outside is invalidated.
“Right from the start, from the time someone came up with the word ‘autism,’ the condition has been judged from the outside, by its appearances, and not from the inside according to how it is experienced.”
Donna Williams, (1996:14)
(Did you know that? That the reputation of autistic people as lacking empathy literally comes from allistic people lacking empathy towards us? That is some institutionalized DARVO shit that still informs most policy around autism.)
The thing is, research like this — serious scientific research into Autism — has historically treated the subjective experiences of its subjects as noise to be filtered out. They all think they can accurately read our emotions if they need to and so don’t need to ask us.
But the double empathy problem shows conclusively that that assumption is false. Allistics are as bad at understanding us as we are at understanding them. It goes both ways. This needs to invalidate any research that presumed to determine our internal state from our behavior.
This study likewise supports the Autistic Language Hypothesis.
To further explain the double empathy problem, Rachel Cullen has devised a theory that Autistic people speak a different language to non-Autistic people. This further disproves that Autistic communication and socialisation is ‘deficit’ or a ‘disorder’, it is simply different, as well as explaining Autistic need for literal language. See also Double empathy problem.
Autistic pragmatic language hypothesis: Rachel Cullen’s theory helps explain the double empathy problem. It explains that perhaps non-autistic people are processing language polytropically (e.g., less detail focussed, able to split attention): seeing the bigger picture, not the detail; parsing (processing) sentences as a whole; where the context exists both in and outside of the words e.g., who is asking? where are we? what’s the tone of their voice? etc. Autistic people, conversely, are processing language monotropically: seeing the finer detail; parsing (processing) at the word level; where the context, for many Autistic people, is in the words only.
Theories about Autistic experience – Aucademy
I was happy to read this study and happy for another piece of research supporting community knowledge.
Related Reading
- Empathy – Stimpunks Foundation (on autistic empathy, from the inside)
- Double Empathy Problem – Stimpunks Foundation
- Autistic Language Hypothesis – Stimpunks Foundation
- Stimpunks Guide to the NeurodiVerse Issue #5: Redefining Autism Science with Monotropism and the Double Empathy Problem – Stimpunks Foundation
- Monotropism – Stimpunks Foundation
- Monotropism Questionnaire – Stimpunks Foundation
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