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Double Empathy

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Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders

Definition

The double empathy problem (DEP) refers to a “disjuncture in reciprocity between two differently disposed social actors” who hold different norms and expectations of each other, such as is common in autistic to non-autistic social interactions (Milton 2012, p. 884). With different dispositional outlooks and personal conceptual understandings, interactions involving autistic and non-autistic people are susceptible to frequent misunderstandings. It is a “double problem” as both people experience it, and so it is not a singular problem located in any one person. However, “the disjuncture may be more severe for the non-autistic disposition as it is experienced as unusual, while for the ‘autistic person’ it is a common experience” (Milton 2012, p. 885).

In principal, the DEP becomes more marked the wider the disjuncture in dispositional perceptions of what constitutes the social context. It is suggested that “social subtext is never fully given as a set of a priori...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tizard Centre, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, UK

    Damian Elgin Maclean Milton

  2. Centre for Research in Autism and Education (CRAE), UCL, London, UK

    Brett Heasman

  3. School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

    Elizabeth Sheppard

Authors
  1. Damian Elgin Maclean Milton
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  2. Brett Heasman
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  3. Elizabeth Sheppard
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Damian Elgin Maclean Milton .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Fred R. Volkmar

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Milton, D.E.M., Heasman, B., Sheppard, E. (2021). Double Empathy. In: Volkmar, F.R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91280-6_102273

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