creators_name: Smith, A creators_id: adamjamessmith@fsmail.net type: journalp datestamp: 2010-04-01 19:26:42 lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:57:35 metadata_visibility: show title: The Empathy Imbalance Hypothesis of Autism: A Theoretical Approach to Cognitive and Emotional Empathy in Autistic Development ispublished: pub subjects: dev-psy subjects: evol-psy full_text_status: public keywords: autism; empathy; theory of mind abstract: There has been a widely held belief that people with autism spectrum disorders lack empathy. This article examines the empathy imbalance hypothesis (EIH) of autism. According to this account, people with autism have a deficit of cognitive empathy but a surfeit of emotional empathy. The behavioral characteristics of autism might be generated by this imbalance and a susceptibility to empathic overarousal. The EIH builds on the theory of mind account and provides an alternative to the extreme-male-brain theory of autism. Empathy surfeit is a recurrent theme in autistic narratives, and empirical evidence for the EIH is growing. A modification of the pictorial emotional Stroop paradigm could facilitate an experimental test of the EIH. date: 2009 date_type: published publication: The Psychological Record refereed: TRUE citation: Smith, A (2009) The Empathy Imbalance Hypothesis of Autism: A Theoretical Approach to Cognitive and Emotional Empathy in Autistic Development. [Journal (Paginated)] document_url: http://cogprints.org/6799/1/TPRVol59No3-SMITH.pdf