Empathy as risk and protective factor in the development of adolescent aggression; the role of autism unraveled

Empathy can strengthen interpersonal relationships, but the question is to what extent empathy also functions this way in autistic adolescents. Despite previous perceptions of lower empathic levels in autistic adolescents, recent studies have stated otherwise. The present study aimed to investigate the developmental trajectories of affective and cognitive empathy, as well as how they predicted the development of proactive and reactive aggression over time in autistic and non-autistic (allistic) adolescents. Eighty-two autistic (Mage = 11.73 years, SD = 1.34) and 105 allistic adolescents (Mage = 11.49 years, SD = 1.36) between 9 and 15 years old were included in this study. Self-reports were administered at 3 time points with 9-month intervals. Longitudinal analyses revealed both affective and cognitive empathy remained stable over time in both groups. Moreover, higher and increasing levels of affective empathy were longitudinally related to increasing levels of reactive aggression for autistic adolescents only, while no relationship was found for allistic participants. Additionally, higher levels of cognitive empathy were longitudinally related to decreasing levels of proactive aggression in both groups. The outcomes support the assumption that, compared to allistic adolescents, autistic adolescents are more easily over-aroused when affected by another person's emotional states.