Is a person with Asperger's capable of violent crime?

[LonesomeDove]

Hello,

I'm sure most of you are aware of the US Connecticut school shooting. You may call it sick curiosity if you like, but the mental state of the shooter (now identified as Adam Lanza) is probably one of the most immediate areas of inquiry, and there is a lot of speculation going on in the media about him having had a personality disorder or, a developmental disorder, namely Asperger's (since he reputedly had high intelligence). Well, as a psychology student I honestly don't like the flippancy with which one of the extreme ends of the autism specter (i.e. Asperger's) is roughly equated with not merely lack of social graces and social awkwardness but with the most violent kind of antisocial behaviour. From what I've read about it, a person with Asperger's can definitely suffer from the consequences of his deficiencies in the social area, and yet the high intelligence does a pretty good job compensating for it, and the kicks he or she gets from the obsessive intellectual interests both help to bridge the gap towards other human beings and give them considerable satisfaction. More to the point, autism, Asperger's or not, is characterized by the lack of Theory of Mind, that is the dearth of insight and interest into other people's minds, their views, bieliefs etc. It is, fundamentally, passively antisocial, not actively. So, I ask you, just how likely is a person with Asperger's willfully kill a bunch of kids? How many (or none) false assumptions are we making with the very suggestion?

Sorry if it turned into a bit of a rant. Freely assume that I know basically very little about what I'm talking about.

Cheers

 

[LonesomeDove]

Forgot to link you to the article that inspired this

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[Dean]

["¦] there is a lot of speculation going on in the media about him having had a personality disorder or, a developmental disorder, ["¦]

Yes, media outlets of all stripes are known to make these sorts of idle speculations quite routinely. I suppose it's arguably part of their job. Not knowing a great deal about this case, all I can say is that unless there is direct evidence of any of this (i.e. from medical history, and so forth, or his behaviour in life), then there is hardly any basis for any of these claims. On assessment of the fact that he was apparently antisocial, he may or may not have had a mental-condition. Antisociality per se, is scarcely enough to warrant a "post-mortem diagnosis". Some will beg to differ (I wager).

(Emphasis added below):

["¦] namely Asperger's (since he reputedly had high intelligence) ["¦].

I should perhaps note at this point that I have Asperger's Syndrome myself. I was diagnosed at the age of ten. I freely admit that my passion has always been for academic life (especially mathematics). I've had my IQ measured on two occasions. The results of those tests themselves, though are irrelevant. However, I must say I do sometimes wonder if I am fulfilling an "Aspie stereotype" (of sorts). This certainly isn't always the case. Yes, it IS true that people with Asperger's Syndrome (and some other forms of autism) tend to have higher than average IQs. But to then say that because a certain person-A, whoever that person is, is intelligent, and conclude therefore that they are autistic, let alone a specific subset of the autistic-spectrum (in this case Asperger's Syndrome), seems palpably absurd.

["¦] So, I ask you, just how likely is a person with Asperger's willfully [sic] kill a bunch of kids? ["¦]

I'm struggling to see how the likelihood of a person with such conditions to commit atrocities such as these would be any greater than those who do not (have Asperger's Syndrome). I suppose it may be possible that antisocial tendencies might drive one to this sort of thing, but certainly not within sound logic . . . it's hard to see how one would go about "calculating" (or even trying to evaluate) this question. At least not without making huge assumptions.

 

[Aelyn]

I don't know what the odds of a person with Asperger's are of killing a bunch of kids but like you I don't think they're much higher than the odds of someone off the autism spectrum doing so, if they aren't lower. But the title of your post is a pretty loaded question (I mean, the answer is so obviously "yes" but how does that get us anywhere ?).

I should also note that we've had quite a few of those mass shootings now, in the US and elsewhere, and there are a lot of patterns and commonalities we can find between them. The perpetrators having Asperger's isn't one of those AFAIK.

Another take on the whole mental illness vs mass shootings thing :
http://freethoughtblogs.com/ashleymiller/2012/12/14/when-you-tie-shootings-to-mental-illness/