Have you heard of "malicious compliance"?

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...and how it relates to misconceptions of ASD/HFA?

I first read about malicious compliance earlier this year, basically meaning what it says... you're asked by some authority figure to do something and you do it to the letter, resulting in failure, that you knew was likely to occur. It tends to occur in more toxic environments and is basically a passive-aggressive adaptation to unpleasant situations.

Now mind you, I didn't read anything about malicious compliance in relation to ASD/HFAs; but I can totally see how us folks on the spectrum might get accused of malicious compliance, and even have dire consequences, e.g. job loss w/o compensation, getting assaulted, kicked out of places, etc.

Just think of things like literal interpretations of things, difficulty with theory of mind and pragmatics, and the vicious cycle of anxiety from misunderstandings begetting more communication breakdowns, brain freezes, etc., and it's a calamity waiting to happen.

I can't recall any really serious time that I was openly accused of malicious compliance, maybe once or twice in my twenties but those memories have faded, but I'm fairly certain that more than once that was the other person's point of view, even if they didn't confront me in so many words - or they picked up that I "wasn't all there" and the behaviour wasn't intentional. I certainly hope it was the latter, less guilt and shame from that

Is bureaucracy one side of it? I've heard some jokes about someone doing something literally. I wouldn't have done that, but there was the urge, there was the feeling that I had carried out the order 100%.

Never heard of it before, but it sounds like a good idea.

Never heard the term. But it is a needed term. I can see how folks can, either consciously, or unconsciously, engage in the thing so described.

I've heard of "pathological demand avoidance" in reference to autism / adhd. That's where you won't do something specifically because it's a demand. Although that's different from malicious compliance.

Malicious compliance is a great way to ensure your concerns are heard the next time around.

Speaking only for myself: as an autistic person I am simply not capable of deliberately doing something I am told to do, knowing that it will fail, in order to teach a lesson to the person telling me to do it.

I can appreciate how a neurotypical person might decide to play mind games like that.

I can also appreciate how many autistic people, and I'd venture a lot of neurotypicals as well, might have carried on doing their best at the task until it inevitably failed, and be left holding the blame for its failure.

Without going into too much detail, I once saw a situation like that in the workplace. Happily the manager involved lost his job, not the worker.

I have never heard of the term "malicious compliance" but I have been engaged in a similiar behaviour on some occasions when dealing with a stubborn incompetent person in a superior position. I have a bit of "pathological demand avoidance" and don't like when people tell me in a bossy way what to do.

Believe it or not, I've been forced into behaving with "malicious compliance" by rigid bosses who want you to do things a way that you know is stupid - but crack down hard on anyone who dares to disagree or not do what they are told. So basically, to keep my job I had to do whatever dumb thing my boss asked me to do. It's frustrating, to say the least.

I don't think autistics tend towards malicious compliance, I think most of us are the other way around. Our inclination is to tell the bosses that the way they want to do things is dumb, and continue trying to do things the smart way. But this irritates the boss and at the first opportunity we get fired.

My parents would constantly torture me by ...one day berating me because I "never express anger", and then the next day they would berate me for "not be able to control my anger" (because I was trying to please them and make them proud of me by doing the most loving thing I could do for them...rip them a second as*hole! Because thats what they claimed that they wanted me to do).

One day they would demand that I "get angry" so that the rewards of life would be bestowed upon me, and then the next day they would inform that "if you get angry you just alienate people and close doors".

Anyway...my "getting angry" would have been unintentional "malicious compliance" (because I was sincerly doing what I thought was the right thing).

Years later today...I wonder how could have put up with that crap. And often wish that I had taken it to the level of deliberate malicious compliance to force them to stop their contradictory crap. Force them to decide "which is it?" ...tell me you're proud of me insulting and verbally abusing you because thats what you want? Or admit the truth that youve been a lying sack of s**t my whole life and never wanted me to "express anger".

Malicious compliance is what it was called when I did exactly as I was told, instead of doing what the person giving the orders actually wanted.  (How was I supposed to know?) It took a few discussions in front of the Big Bosses to get everyone to understand that I was following their orders, and not being a smart-ass.

The inside joke among professional computer programmers is that the machine "will do what you tell it to do, and not you WANT it to do". Thats the tough lesson you need to learn at the get go of the profession.

So computers are prone to do what might be called "accidental/unintentional malicious compliance" because they are machines that dont pick up on the nuances humans lay between the lines (but at the same time machines have no malice).

With a human subordinate who messes up by taking instructions too literally...it could be either intentional, or unintentional MC.

Two very different things.

Pathological demand avoidance is ...getting a meltdown because you cant handle an assigned task.

Malicious compliance is following orders, and completing the assigned task in a purposely wrong way out of existing malice to the higher ups.