Autistische Personen und Menschen mit sozialer Angst unterscheiden sich in der Art und Weise, wie sie Empathie erleben, so eine neue Studie. Beide Gruppen meldeten in der Regel ein erhöhtes Maß an emotionaler Belastung in sozialen Situationen, aber nur Personen mit Autismus zeigten ein geringes Maß an emotionaler Besorgnis für andere.

I’ve linked to the news release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aur.70075

From the linked article:

**Autistic individuals and those with social anxiety differ in how they experience empathy, new study suggests**

A new study published in the journal Autism Research indicates that empathy may operate quite differently in individuals with autism spectrum condition compared to those with social anxiety. **Both groups tended to report elevated levels of emotional distress in social situations, but only individuals with autism showed lower levels of emotional concern for others**. The researchers also introduced a new way to distinguish between these overlapping conditions: a ratio of self-focused distress to other-oriented concern. This metric, they argue, could help improve diagnosis and support strategies.

Autism and social anxiety are both linked to social difficulties, but for different reasons. People with autism spectrum condition often struggle with understanding and responding to social cues. Social anxiety, on the other hand, involves intense fear of being judged or rejected in social situations. These overlapping traits often make it difficult to distinguish between the two in clinical settings, especially since many autistic people also experience high levels of social anxiety. This overlap has created a need for better tools to tease apart the similarities and differences in how these groups perceive and respond to others.

One of the key traits involved in social functioning is empathy, which can be broadly divided into two components. Cognitive empathy involves understanding another person’s thoughts and feelings. Affective empathy relates to emotional responses to others, such as compassion or distress. Prior studies suggest that people with autism tend to show lower cognitive empathy and mixed patterns in emotional empathy, with some reports of heightened emotional distress. In contrast, individuals with social anxiety may show high emotional reactivity but impaired accuracy in interpreting others’ mental states. Yet few studies have directly compared these two groups on both forms of empathy, using tools that can separate the different aspects.

People sometimes confuse my social anxiety and general weirdness for autism

So this makes sense I’m always concerned abojt the other people