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dannypk16
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Member Since: Feb 2019
Location: Spain
Posts: 44
5 yr Member
Default Feb 02, 2019 at 08:43 AM
 
Just wanted to make a clear distinction between antisocial and asocial people, since I see there's a serious confusion between both of them.

First of all, let's check what definitions are given for each word:

Quote:
Definition of antisocial
1 : averse to the society of others : UNSOCIABLE
2 : hostile or harmful to organized society
especially : being or marked by behavior deviating sharply from the social norm
3 psychology : of, relating to, or characteristic of antisocial personality disorder

- Merriam Webster Dictionary
Quote:
Definition of asocial
: not social: such as
a : rejecting or lacking the capacity for social interaction
b : ANTISOCIAL

- Merriam Webster Dictionary
As we can see, and this happens in every dictionary, antisocial and asocial are used as synonyms, relating both of them to "unsociable", "shy" and similar. It also states that antisocial means "harmful for society" or "someone that suffers from ASPD". Now, let's see what ASPD is:

Quote:
Someone with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) has a reckless disregard for others and often for himself (most people with antisocial personality disorder are male). He doesn't want to conform to social norms and willfully destroys property, steals or manipulates others for personal profit, or overindulges in pleasure-seeking behavior. For example, he speeds, drives while drunk, engages in risky sex, or uses drugs.

- Psychcentral
I saw people saying that ASPD should be renamed to stop confusions with the word "asocial" and similar, but the word "antisocial" is correctly used in this personality disorder. The prefix "anti-" means against, in the case of "antisocial" means "against society", and this totally fits with the definition of ASPD - clearly related with sociopathy and psychopathy. There should be a clear distinction between "antisocial" and "asocial", since someone unsociable cannot be related with someone totally sociable, as many antisocial people haven't got trouble being sociable.

If you've come here because you feel, or you are, unsociable, shy, suffer from social anxiety and similar, and you've got empathy, you don't lack of remorse or guilt, are able of feeling as much emotions as neurotypicals (happiness, sadness/depression, anger and so on), you don't constantly tell lies for your own profit or entertainment, you don't constantly feel boredom and you've got a low self-esteem, you don't fit that much with the antisocial/ASPD or psychopathy criteria.

Instead, you could look for Social Anxiety Disorder, depression and similar. Or maybe you simply haven't got a disorder and you're simply shy or bad at being sociable. You should start calling yourself an asocial rather than an antisocial.
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Thanks for this!
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