When do you use Theory of Mind?

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I think it's more due to the work rules about needing to keep busy than TOM. No one wants to get into trouble if their boss sees they aren't keeping busy.

Many here aren't really feeling what others are feeling but rather are feeling something inside themselves and making the connection with others. A paper where Simon Baron Cohen was one of the writers mentioned that personal distress was higher in autistics but the feeling of wanting to help others or experiencing others own pain even without any knowledge is well...low. It concluded cognitive empathy and emotional are connected in some way I think. We must know our own limitations honestly.

I well understand that other people have different motivations than I do, I just can't for the life of me figure out what those motivations are most of the time. This makes it seem, to me, that people often behave in unexpected ways, which makes me nervous to be around them. I never know what they're going to do next, and trying to anticipate is exhausting.

it always seems to me that I have to make use of context clues.

For people of "normal" neurology, this comes naturally.

For me, I have to use my cognition consciously.

Yes there is a minority of folks so stupid and lacking in common sense that they need "looking busy" to be written into the rule book, and yes- a person that stupid is not using TOM.

But not all workplaces have that as an actual written rule.

But most folks dont need that rule written into the rule book in order to follow that unwritten "rule" because they have enough common sense to show the boss what he wants to see because they have ToM.

"Common sense" and Theory of Mind go hand in hand.

Much of "common sense" is knowing what other people think, as well as knowing the optimal solution to a problem.

May I put out a conjecture here for reflection.

I observer in myself that there have been many times I have done Theroy of Mind stuff and it has been definitelt explicit and a conscious act. I have been faced with some vexed situation, and in the privacy of my journal or my own four walls, or anywhere else private enough for me to think out loud) I have run the situation and tried to be in a different pair of shoes each time.

If one were looking for the traits of neurotypicallity, then one indicator would be that a neurotypical person might be doing low level stuff like that in the background of their thinking most of the time, while a neurodiverse mind mght be spending the same processing time doing something else such as finding details in the situation, seeing how something Actually works rather than copying how others deal with it, and when we do the Theory of Mind activity it is as a conscious act not an intuitive at, and indeed choosing to do it sometimes has to be a conscious decision.

Perhaps, but I think it's just as dangerous to accept these theories too readily as the absolute truth when our abilities might be rather better than that. In my own case for example, this notion that others have different perspectives to myself is axiomatic, yet I'm a diagnosed Aspie. It would be a shame if I swallowed the idea that I had no theory of mind.

There are very few "absolute truths."

I must be stupid then because I had to be told I had to keep busy at one of my jobs. I still think it is a dumb rule because what are you supposed to be doing if you are just waiting or don't have any work to do now? But it's either just try and look busy or lose your job.

Also I have been told I didn't have common sense but I do think I have it, people just say I lack it when I didn't know about something most people would know such as if I didn't read between the lines and if I took something literal. I also think people will say someone didn't have common sense when they do something stupid like it's common sense to get off at the next exit and get back on the freeway if you miss your exit. You wouldn't try and pull over and back up to the exit or slam on your breaks to get to the exit. Anyone who actually does this, we would think that person was stupid because they did something dangerous. We call it common sense. I guess that would be one of the unwritten rules about driving.

my verbal thoughts in my head generally happen in the form of imaginary conversations with people i know or expect to interact with

so, i'd say "all the frickin time"

I cannot relate to people and have a complete lack of empathy. So I put my mind to work to try to figure things out based on past experiences of other peoples reacted.

When someone dies that they loved, response is a hug. When someone died that they hated, some calm words about forgiveness and whatnot. When they are depressed, I spend some time with them and comfort them.

Main factor is: I appear to have empathy though I lack it. Not getting into trouble and being cool with everybody is my game. Or rather my kind of empathy just isnt intuitive.

I don't think it's an absolute. There must be some bosses out there who understand that nobody really works flat out for the entire working day. Indeed, in the UK we have this concept of "unfair dismissal" and I would think a legal tribunal would take a very dim view of an employer sacking somebody just because they noticed them relaxing once or twice for a few minutes. And they'd normally have to go through a procedure agreed with the union, which usually says the employee has to be warned several times, first verbally and then in writing. In my last workplace we had an extremely lazy worker and it took the management years to get rid of them. Bill Gates supposedly once said that he valued lazy employees because they're good at finding the easiest (and therefore the most efficient) ways of performing tasks, though maybe he was just showing off how good he is at "out of the box" thinking.

Anyway, I think it often pays to avoid looking significantly lazier than the people around you, but there's no need to imagine it's completely black and white, especially if you're delivering your results on time and the employer values the quality of your work and feels they might find it hard to replace you with anybody better.

also never work as hard as your colleagues seem to be, unless you're okay with them hating you for it (or okay with doing work that others should be doing, in addition to your own), because it will force them to work harder without a raise

It took me a while to appreciate that when I first got a job. For some time, as far as I was concerned I was there to work, that was why I was being paid, simple as that. I resented being told to slow down. Eventually I saw the bigger picture.

I gather that back in Victorian times, coal miners were paid per unit weight of coal they dug up, so the younger, fitter miners would naturally work very hard to get the highest wage they could. Problem was, that would raise the national average, and the older ones would be sacked when their output fell below that average, with no pension rights. Thus, a group effort to slow down was a way of avoiding abject poverty later in life.

It's interesting to ponder the perspective of employers and supervisors. It's hard to escape the notion that ultimately all they're interested in is maximizing return on invested capital, though I think for the ones who have direct contact with the workforce, there can at times be a modicum of empathy with employees, i.e. the boss isn't always a complete bastard, not that I'd particularly trust that attitude to hold when the chips are down. And I've read that as a percentage there are more narcissists among leaders than there are in the general population, so it probably pays to remain open to the possibility that one is working for somebody who has an uncommonly narcissistic perspective. Tricky.