Are we a mix of "high context" and "low-conte

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I know it's been mentioned before, but I was wondering if people with ASDs may basically exist outside of the traditional "high-context"/"low-context" paradigm (often simplified in pop sociology to figurative and literal thinking, respectively) that Edward T. Hall came up with in '76. This link,

http://www2.pacific.edu/sis/culture/pub ... and_Lo.htm

divides up the markers that separate the two types into five categories: association, interaction, learning, territoriality, and temporality.

Basically, I think that while we often seem like the "lowest-context" individuals imaginable and diagnosis rates are unusually high in the Protestant cultures (other than the Southern US and the Caribbean where African cultural influence "heightened" the context at a formative stage in the colonial period), we actually are not 100% in the "low-context" bracket. If you look at how we relate to people and learn, we fit the "low-context" paradigm, but if you look at our attitude toward property and time, we often are more fluid in the manner of the "high-context" cultures. There are exceptions to every rule, of course, as this very example shows, but I wonder, as an Anglo-Scandinavo-Jewish hybrid who spent time growing up in France and majored in Spanish (thereby becoming intimately familiar with both "types" of cultures), whether finding a way to be a mediator or filter between high- and low-context cultures is part of the secret to unlocking a stable niche for ourselves in a world of constantly changing fashions and government and corporate priorities. After all, we are effectively born straddling both worlds.

high=31
low=38
i straddle the line between both camps, most of the time.

How is this dichotomy related to the dichotomy Apollonian vs. Dionysian?

ruveyn

Your High context score is: 11
Your Low context score is: 38

Interesting test and explanation of the results.

Hi C: 30
Lo C: 40

ruveyn

By "property," and I'm speaking from personal experience here, I mean that we often struggle to understand, or at least to be motivated by, the ideas of private property and money. It goes with the "territoriality" concept because we don't seem to have an innate sense of the "personal space bubble," at least with regard to others. We have favorite objects and may indeed collect them, but don't immediately latch onto the idea that they're "ours" any more than the ground we walk on or the food we eat at a restaurant; valuable, yes, but not "ours" in an immutable if temporary sense. Transactions like a trade or exchange of favors are difficult interactions to process because we don't "see" what's really changing hands and why it's significant unless there's some sort of mathematical indicator of the transaction, and even then (as in the case of financial transactions) it doesn't have much emotional significance since it involves the belief in the value of tokens just because they're legal tender rather than because they can be used for something in themselves.

By "time," I mean that without a timepiece, we go by the sun and don't feel the passage of time on an internal level. We get "lost" or "zone out" because we lose track of a way of measuring experience that makes little sense to us, and are often accused by low-context cultures of being disrespectful due to a lack of the punctuality they value (in high-context cultures, we are more often taken to task for weird or rigid interactions than for failure to perform tasks, or at least with a ratio more slanted to the former).

Both property and exact time are artifices of the neurotypical mind no matter where one is, but high-context cultures are more fluid about them on an interpersonal level than low-context ones. I hope this helps clarify

Hmm..


Hi - 30

Low - 36

so far, only the lower-context-dominant types have posted- i wonder if the typical NT score would be opposite [mostly high-context]?

Well, there probably would be greater tendency to high context in NTs than in us.

HC = 21
LC = 32

It's a bigger gap than I expected, but then again, I'm often a little arbitrary when I do these intensity-bubble things from 1-5 or whatever, so it might be a little off the reality.

Yes, I'm indeed a hybrid.

HC=32
LC=31

To auntblabby: Yup, as an Aspie, I'm curious about whether NTs will be more HC than LC.
To georgewilson: Yup, I agree with you. Money does motivate me but only to a small extent. I frequently lose track of time.
To all: Do you think that the culture that you have grown up in will affect your score? I have grown up in a HC culture.

Your High context score is: 24

Your Low context score is: 38

i grew up in an immediate family that was primarily LC, while the schooling i had to endure was skewed more towards HC, straddling the middle. if i had been born a generation earlier i suspect it would've been different in terms of school.

We Vulcans are LC. We Vulcans are also Cohanim.

Live long and prosper.

\\//

ruveyn

HC = 31
LC = 37

When I read the descriptions I thought I'd test more as low context, and I did, but not as much as I thought I would.

Why is everyone else's high context score double or triple mine? I feel left out with a mere 11. What does that mean?