A Theory of Mind? Or A Theory of War....

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Nor could I, and I searched for a couple of hours. It does seem an odd omission, and researchers interested in retesting SBC's sampling method and overall design rely on full details of the primary experimental claim, so that they can note and discuss any differences in sampling techniques etc which may have influenced their own conclusions in some way when they publish their own findings.

It may have been a simple oversight though given that there were 3 doctoral level researchers, that doesn't seem plausible.

If you still have it handy Eloa, please could I have a link to the German study?

This is the link to the abstract:
http://econtent.hogrefe.com/doi/full/10.1024//1422-4917.30.1.29

And this is the full study but in German:
http://www.hf.uni-koeln.de/data/ps/File/Kissgen%20&%20Schleiffer%202002.pdf

Anyway the difference in outcome is striking in that in the replication study the performance in the autistic group surpassed that of both control groups.
There is a minimal difference in age (autistic children + 12 month, with Down syndrom + 8 month, preschool controls + 5 month), but they still match the cognitive performance profile as in the original study.

When someone shows your arguments as flawed you simply claim they are trolling. That's some strategy you have there, quite unique. I hope it serves you well.

The amazon link is broken.

I don't pay much attention to psych theories tbh. Especially one created by a single individual. A lot of it is just Shrink egotism mumbo-jumbo.

A wise perspective, IMO. I think the main concern is that a lot of folks read and swallow pop science, and many of us don't want it putting about that we are "zero-empathic" because the casual reader might easily end up thinking we don't care about others, or possibly that we're relatively unaware of the difference between right and wrong, and that we're criminals. I could counter that by saying (for example) that moral certainty is also dangerous to society, and in many other ways, but "ToughDiamond says" doesn't reach as many ears as "Simon says," if you see what I mean.

Yes, caution is wise. In the psych field many people defer automatically to expert privilege, some sincerely believing "an expert said it so it must be true", one of the many ways that people "give their power away". There's always the child who fails to conform to the mindset that "the emporer is wearing clothes" (I was that child!! lol)

I often think of the Greek story of Procrustes as a general metaphor for the autistic community: Procrustes - for those who don't know of this ancient story - stopped travellers on their way to Athens and placed them on his bed to see if they would fit. If they didn't, any part of them that didn't fit was cut off. If they were too short, they were stretched; they were confined by a tyranny exercised by a tyrant with his theory of how people should be made to conform to his ideas of "normal".

But when we allow ourselves to be "dismembered" in that way by someone's pet theory, there is seemingly often a high price to pay - internalised oppression. The impact of wrong theory is huge, and when it is used to pain and shame people - and TOM is relentlessly used in that way - people can and do respond to the pain of being so misunderstood by cutting off from themselves, their own truth, their own self-knowledge. I can see the temptations of a surrender to the procrustean bed of reductionism inwardly for some, because there may be social approval for that surrender, minorities that appear to subscribe to myths about themselves and their group are rewarded culturally for "knowing their place". Academics are rewarded for "playing the game" and not speaking openly about the faults of false theory and practice in experimental psychology. It's a club, and the critical theorists are not welcome into it, a parallel with the child who notices the nudity of the emperor.

The worst theories in psychology usually come from the loudest of the promoters - particularly Lovaas and Skinner in years past. The intensity with which they seek to dominate the stage in their discipline with constant self-promotion is a fairly compelling danger signal for me.

Sorry, not sure what happened to the link. I posted a working link further down the page. Here it is again.
Title: Organism and Environment: Ecological Development, Niche Construction, and Adaptation
Author: Sonia E. Sultan
This should work: https://www.amazon.com/Organism-Environ ... nk22499-20

SBC does not claim that autistic people have no empathy, the only people saying that are people who don't understand the work. SBC's theories and works are repeatedly misrepresented here, numerous times on this thread alone and it is but one. I genuinely hope this is simply people being over-defensive and that these false beliefs are not common amongst society as a whole.


I do hope you start to mention these beliefs when you post links to studies and theories in the future.

So where did this theory of "NTs have positive empathy, psychopaths have negative empathy, and autistics have zero empathy" come from? I was under the impression that it came from "The Science Of Evil." Does anybody have a copy so this can be checked? It would be interesting if it turned out to be a red herring.

Here is a very good discussion of neurotypical professional privilege of psychologists and psychotherapists by Nick Walker
http://neurocosmopolitanism.com/neuroty ... t-clients/

I was also very pleased to read this book by Lydia Andal https://amiautistic.com/
The author makes some very good points about undiagnosed "professional aspies/autistics", those who manage to survive – at times more and at other times barely – in the neurotypical world of "work". Having worked for nearly three decades in the software industry and in the world of data analytics, I very much relate to this perspective.

There are a number of industries where the percentage of aspies/autistics is obviously much higher than in the wider population. It would not surprise me if 10% of the people in teams working at the heart of software/data intensive industries are closet aspies/autistics.

These people know that they will be subject to institutionalised discrimination as soon as they openly identify as autistic. Some suffer significantly, yet they don't dare to seek assistance. At the same time, privileged autism professionals like SBC might not even "grant" them an autism diagnosis.

On one occasion I witnessed how an obviously autistic colleague got escorted out of the building by security, not because of any wrongdoing or performance related issue, but simply because he displayed a few autistic behaviours. You can guess what signal this sends to the other four closet autistics amongst 40 hyper-competitive and socially "well adjusted" neurotypicals in the room.

Neurotypical privilege prevents some stories to be told that should be told. For example the story that aspies/autistics are capable of collaboration, and that successful autistic collaboration may require adaptations that are odds with the expectations and standards found in neurotypical works places. Collaboration is one of the words where the semantics are dictated by neurotypical privilege.

I am very lucky to have escaped from traditional employment and to have found a few trusted colleagues that provide a survivable interface to the [insane] neurotypical world. Others are less lucky, and find themselves trapped.

Science as we think of it - a secular mode of inquiry - was established by the work and voices of dissenters, so dissent perspectives have always been very interesting me. Dissenters know that they won't win popular approval, though they also know that paradigms can change, do change, have changed and that what was considered dissent at one time can morph into becoming a conformist view. That's not always a bad thing. I think that will happen to TOM, because there will be new discoveries and discussions from interdisciplinary perspectives. The discovery of neuroplasticity - so recently really - demolished a lot of "set in stone" theories about the capacity for human change.

...

A contribution here which ponders the issue of conformity vis a vis dissent a bit:

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Disse ... _WSND.html

For the critical theory students here, there is a recent book that may be a very useful reference in your studies if you haven't come across it to date:

The Handbook of Critical Psychology
edited by Ian Parker
- published 2015

PS If anyone is a bit baffled by what is meant by the term "critical psychology" applied to experimental contexts, basically it is a body of thought that maintains that the findings of experiments (especially applied in social sciences like experimental psychology) are "constructed", that science is not merely "discovered". The central contention is that both factors interplay though the discovery only concept is unduly privileged. (Some critical theorists focus their work entirely on examining how this privilege serves to maintain ruling power structures, they are often a branch of post-modernist thought). Deconstructionist disciplines sit under the general umbrella of the philosophy of science.

Thanks, this book may come in handy.

The price tag will prevent it from becoming a best seller. A pity some people still use the old established publishers.

JBW and B19, thanks for the reading material. I'd never heard of liberation psychology or the neurodiverse paradigm until today. The video on feedback loops was also interesting, along with the refresher on descent in society. If I recall correctly from earlier reading about Milgram and related obedience experiments, some people started disobeying when descenters were included.

Enjoy your learning curve! For me that moment kicked off in the 1970s, when I read Kuhn's book for the first time. It was like a gift from him that gave me a clearer and wider vision of how experimental psychology looked at itself from the inside out, never the outside in. I was at university then and saw this all the time, though it was hard to conceptualise what I saw in the absence of critical theory.

You are right in thinking that one of the variables Milgram manipulated was introducing dissenters. From memory, their presence resulted in more people refusing to obey under these circumstances. (We dissenters take heart from that )

Another researcher of that period, Asch, found the same thing. Dictators and totalitarian regimes hate dissenters because they know, consciously or not, that dissenters can break the spell of conformity for some others sometimes, and so they try to silence them in brutal ways. Words are powerful things alright!