Picking Up Social Situations Intuitively....

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What their social intuition perceives is reality. What they then tell themselves and others is the lie.

so maybe it's about not being able to enter into or perceive their fantasy of themselves?

I think you give people way too much credit. In my personal opinion nobody can truly perceive reality in a completely true and unbiased manner. Perception is always tainted both by lack of information and by personal bias. Actually what often happens is personal bias fills in the holes when information is lacking.

What NTs do is make assumptions. They can only read people based on outward appearances. This quick and dirty type of intuition works well for dealing with social situations in real time. It doesn't help them truly understand people if they don't put in a deeper more conscious effort. The kick is that they often don't need to truly understand people in order to manipulate the situation. They only need to come up with the right thing to say quickly without thinking for too long.

Like I´ve said before, I´ve learned so much by being on Wrong Planet! More than all the books combined. It´s so great to be able to ask questions, and get thought provoking feedback! We can all teach each other, through our experiences.[/quote]

o look what happened by means of not quite controlling the quote-mechanism

morgana agrees with morgana, i love it

meanwhile: just some spice to add to this thread

it can be said all auties at least have affected social ' intuition' and sensorial issues; that would be consensus
(only problem: many of us take it too personal, and feel having been accused of lacking emotion, or worse: lacking sympathy;
which is not nice to hear said of oneself...)
deal with it, language only, dont have to let hurt

there is however some literature that point toward a problem or rather manifestation based on differently developing left-right sides of brain

there or other 'intuitions' involved or to be involved:
auties, as a consequence, should not be surprised to find themselves possibly even over-sensitive as it comes to social input:
only more inclined to fight or flight (decision geared to understanding) in response, than to adapt to and sympathize

sorrynottogetthisclearer/[email protected]

This thing about being wired differently...what exactly neurodiversity really means for those on the spectrum...needs to be figured out and explained in detail. And not by the psychologists and psychiatrists but by us on the spectrum, in particular those at WP. Whether we realize it or not, that may be what we are trying to do in this thread and in other recent ones. The entirety of our neurodiversity may not be hardwired. Some of it may be the equivalent of software programs functioning in our brains. I was reading today on one of the boards the opinion of an aspie-- once you go into business for yourself and NTs need the service or product you are supplying, everything changes. The rank assigned you and the respect given you may actually skyrocket.

Therefore a successful business owner, aspie or NT, may increase their status and position by virtue of their business...depending upon how much their service/product is required by the general public. i.e., they are being useful socially. As opposed to being seen as not terribly useful socially.

Aufgehen made a brilliant post. My mother gave me the silent treatment too. I tried to capture some key points here:



Pecking orders seem to be decided both by the pack leaders as well as the mind games designed to sort out and distribute people in their appropriate positions. We don't pay attention to these things because they are painful for us, most of us were cruelly conditioned to believe that we don't play well with others, and we have been wired so that we don't even care to pay attention to the things that would easily extricate us or place us in a high position. For many of us the establishment of social ranking is totally disgusting behavior and to be avoided at all cost. We much prefer people being treated as though we all have equal rank. And for many of us equal rank includes LFAs, if not every human on the planet. Why do so many of us share this value of seeing everyone as equal? I think plays a huge role in determining what neurodiversity means.

Of course aspies aren't all the same in the way we function. But we may be alike in enough ways to be significant. Many of us suffer from sensory and informational overload as well as different priorities. Greentea has pointed out that while aspies tend to communicate for purposes of informational exchange, this is not why NTs engage in social communication. NTs are primarily DOING as opposed to exchanging information. While they may also be exchanging information, it is of a much lesser priority for them. And when we aspies notice the quality of information exchange among NTs, it is often so boring for us that we can't fathom why they could possibly be interested in such superficial idiotic things.

Aspies, it seems, are more interested in depth. NTs more interested in the surface of things. NTs like to survey the field quickly and play, to them, interesting games with each other. Aspies find this very difficult and exhausting. The reason we find it exhausting is because our interest lie elsewhere. We like to stick with one subject that is appealing to us and explore the heck out of it. NTs can do this when bribed to do so like with a well paying job, but a good number of them don't seem to really like doing it. Aspies on the other hand generally thrive on it.

NTs are often honing their skills of competition. I believe Aspies often tend to regard socially competetive events as either useless or disgusting. Such events, including social games, nearly always emphasize the pecking order and sometimes create opportunities for promotion and demotion in one's ranking. The primary reason autistic persons are disdained is because they refuse to participate in the ranking rituals -- initial ranking process and subsequent ranking games as well. Autistics show ineptitude with these things as well as inordinate stubborness and opposition to being assigned their appropriate position---from the NT point of view.

*****
But I think we need to probe deeper as to the cause for such ineptitude. Is it due to our programming, our wiring, which we may be able to change simply by wanting to reorder our priorities? Is it difficult to change this wiring primarily because we'd rather not or because we can't? The distinction makes all the difference in the world. From what I've observed and concluded from 6 months here at WP ----- some aspies can and do change their limitations simply because they are motivated to do so. While others may find it impossible to change their programming. It's probably not impossible for all of us.
*****

As Aufgehen says, we may be "more sensitive to what is going on, on a deeper level (even if we don't realize it)........We may actually be missing nothing. Our subconscious minds are picking it all up. And we are computing it as well on a semi-conscious level. But we are probably editing most of it due to our priority filters. Aspies are pretty much governed by what interests them. If it isn't interesting, it is very quickly thrown overboard. And then where does that leave us? We can't even remember discarding the clues because it's such a habit with us.

So rather than missing cues, I think we get the cues probably even faster than NTs do....but we aren't interested in them, so our conscious brains filter them out. Nevertheless, some of us apparently can, with great difficulty, train ourselves to either retrieve these clues from our subconscious processing, or else reprogram and retrain ourselves to consider social cues more as vital information than garbage.

However, it should be pointed out, that the aspie brain is the perfect brain for a civilization that wants to make rapid technological advancement. And that all revisions we may feel inclined to make [to the brain's software/it's programming] for the sake of enhanced social functioning may, in the end, be self defeating.....and may not even serve our society in the most efficient way possible.

Furthermore, it's a definite possibility but perhaps unpopular opinion, that the NT way of doing things is gradually becoming obsolete... in a highly technological world where the fastest pace possible is the preferred pace. But that debate is beyond the scope of this thread.

Or maybe we're entering another Dark Ages episode of History. With the economy as it is, the terrorism and the absence of cash, we have all the elements required for another round of retrograde feudalism. Labor in exchange for protection; fortresses against the enemies. That's all starting to happen now. Technology may be forgotten for centuries now, as telecom enterprieses and the hitech giants worldwide collapse and no more research is being funded. Massive firings, and today our salaries were cut back too.

And how do you explain that at age 3-4 my siblings knew our mother meant B when she said A and I discovered it only in my late thirties? If it's not hardwired, then what caused the huge gap, so much so soon?

I agree. I think "will to perform" and "ability to perform" are more connected than most people think. I think the reason social situations are so hard for me to pick up is because I'm not instinctively interested in them. I tend to tune things out that don't interest me and it's quite involuntary.

Also, it's not that I don't care about other people. It's the fact that the very basic information that can be gleaned from the surface, the stuff that comes from body language, from appearances, from superficial social interaction - none of that interests me because there's missing information. I want to see the whole picture. I want to know what people are really thinking. This is impossible to know from the surface, even for NT's. If I can't have the whole thing I don't want any of it. It's like being fed table scraps that leave you hungry for something more. My brain has adapted to ignore the scraps since they fail to satiate me and only serve to disappoint me. I'd rather starve than subsist on scraps.

This aspect of wanting the whole picture also effects other areas of learning. I'm not content to study things without going in depth. Again, it's like being fed scraps and I lose interest, I lose both the will and the ability to learn.

I was quite genuinely stunned when I read the thread regarding this: i.e., 'doing' things with conversation. Suddenly something which has always baffled me - why people would chatter pointlessly for half an hour or more, never once saying anything of any real need or value - had been explained.

Something I've also observed is that a great many people can't tolerate silence, period, for any extended amount of time - by this, I mean finding themselves with another person and not talking. Few can tolerate it if they know the second person; some can't even tolerate it if the other is a complete stranger. The reason for that may be multifaceted. It may be the desire for social acceptance and to decide the 'places' of themselves and those around them in the social order of things that leads them to constantly need to hear others' thoughts and analyze them to determine this. If they don't know what the other person is thinking, it becomes a nigh on impossible task, and not being able to do this probably makes them uncomfortable. It may also be that NT people tend to look outside themselves and to others for immediate stimulation rather than this being provided by an internal train of thought; the brain may simply become easily bored when that stimulation is not provided.

Alba, are you making a point about direction of causation? I.e., Do Aspies have low rank because they don't care about social status (and therefore don't try to get ahead), or do they not care about social status because they have low rank (psychological down-valuing)?

Without at all refuting Greentea's point that something real is causing a communication gap between Aspies and NTs, it could be the case that Aspies fail to climb the social ladder, and then decide to not care about status, in order to protect themselves from the practical effects of their shortcomings. Or it could be the case that status-indifference is hard-wired along with the other difficulties, resulting in a lack of activity directed at social climbing (and even if we later learn that being concerned about status is worthwhile, other problems could prevent us from making much progress in that direction).

I think the standard interpretation is not-caring first, but not-caring second actually makes a lot of sense.

Greentea, it could be due to a number of things. I would suggest Aufgehen and marshall are on the right track. It seems there is a relationship between NT intuition/empathy and the "socially controlled aspect of human nature", the ego [Aufgehen].




I believe we need to establish exactly what neurodiversity means and we've only begun to scratch the surface. We need to explore how NTs create their pecking orders and why many Aspies hate pack mentality so much. We've been hurt by it, but also we don't appear to be very good at it. Why aren't we good at it? What do we find so repulsive about pecking orders and pack mentality? Are we repulsed by it because we aren't good at it? Or are we inept at it because we are repulsed by it?

Even more importantly, how does a healthy ego depend upon accepting our position in the pecking order and being willing to contribute our share to the pack mentality? Can society function without assigning rank to its members? Would that be an improvement in terms of facilitating a rapidly advancing technological civilization?

I would suggest, Greentea, that you place much less importance on fitting in, on being a member of the pack, and you felt outrage at such things probably from your first few days as an infant, or shortly thereafter. Your siblings had the more normal aspirations. They valued friendship and fitting it to such an extent that they developed the skills necessary to fortify their egos and thus to enable successful participation in social activities. They probably valued being appreciated by others over being true to themselves [a very risky thing to postulate when I know nothing about them]. Whereas you Greentea, may have felt more of a need to honor your own integrity, perhaps stubborness, and strong desire to see all people as more or less equal. You probably found, as did most of us, that the pecking order rituals made you uncomfortable [even outraged] because you saw no need whatsoever to assign people a rank based upon superficialities. This being true to yourself, integrity, may be something that is hardwired into many of us.

I would also like to go out on a limb here and suggest that a major contributor to our poor social skills is that we didn't want to fit in from a very young age, if that fitting in meant devaluing some people. Therefore we self-sabotaged our own performance on the ranking rituals because we'd rather completely fail than reinforce something which we felt was inherently brutal and blatantly unfair. So we focus on going into depth with our special interests and don't play games that require sophisticated and extensive knowledge of the superficial...which is one of the foundations of discrimination in our society.





Well said. Heh...seems to me, aspies tend to keep on believing in their own kind of intuition---our way or the highway. The 'quick and dirty type of intuition' used by NTs just isn't good enough for us. IMO what seems to be hardwired into us is our respect for equality and integrity, also our self-respect...although sadly, our self-respect can sometimes be transmuted into self-loathing through the judgments of parents or the torture of bullies. No, scraps aren't good enough for us. If others can't earn our trust, why should we accept their scraps? As for social rules, because they are neither interesting nor fair....they go in the trash. That's what we all tend to do. But some of us have found it less painful to go through life sort of compromising and these have let go of the strict code of ethics. They've also let go of 'my way or the highway'. However, not all of us want to do that, and not all of us may be able to do it even if we want to.

For me, I would kind of say "none of the above". Basically, these things- pecking order and pack mentality- feel unnatural to me, plain and simple. Odd as it may sound, I wasn´t really aware of these things- or only vaguely so- for much of my life. Now that I am finally aware of these concepts, I am repulsed by them too. But I think my reason for being "bad at them" is the basic fact that I didn´t play the game because I barely knew the game existed...(or everybody else has been playing Monopoly all this time, while I´ve been playing Parcheesi....without even being aware that I was playing a different game)!

Which brings me sort of back to the original basis of this thread. These things are just not intuitive to us, I think.

Yes, I like what you say, that we need to establish what neurodiversity means. I think I´m trying to do that, in a way. But it´s also hard to define without knowing quite what "neurotypical" means. I think that´s also what I´m trying to learn: in what way, exactly, am I different from "the norm"?

Well, yeah, I guess I do tend to agree with myself....at least, most of the time.

This here is the big thing that separates me from NTs. I'm not good at the pecking order stuff. Hierarchical thinking.

A funny thing to remember, though, is when, on one message board, a couple folks were trying to convince me to change how I post to fit that hierarchical thinking, to please the social leaders. And, what made if funny was, well, if I did give in and say okay, well, the person I'd put at the top of the hierarchy, he was someone who liked how I posted and wouldn't want me to change. (Actually, he's the person I mentioned as a role model in the role model thread.) So, they were really quite unconvincing, as far as getting me to change, because their argument worked against them.

I think I'm just not good at it. And my religion/spirituality has helped me accept not seeing the world that way. That everyone's equal. I'm not repulsed by hierarchical thinking. It's just my brain doesn't work that way. And, no, I haven't been motivated to learn it. Not because I'm repulsed by it. Just, I don't agree with it. Less severe than being repulsed. Learning social skills fits with my values and desires. Learning hierarchical thinking does not. Okay, so, that is a social skill. I mean the other social skills, the one's we more readily think of when thinking of social skills, those I have been motivated to develop. One on one and small group, everyone equal social skills.

So, it's both lack of ability and lack of motivation to learn, for me.

Actually, I'd say I'm bad at hierarchical thinking, group thinking, and being what others want me to be. And I've no desire to develop those skills. Though, I'm coming to understand them in others, and that's a helpful thing.

Perhaps it is "hardwired", to stay within this metaphor, but some are able to replace the missing "hardwired" function of NT by developing approbate software and even learn to use this software subcontinent.

But to learn this, you need at the one end to be aware of the difference, on the side, and IMHO more important, to be willing to learn.



This "superficial idiotic things" play in the NT world an important role. My partner, NT, playing this game perfectly, sometimes says me that he this also as "superficial idiotic things", but it is needed to oil the wheels. In office kitchen the contents, the actual information, it less important than the game surrounding the exchange of information. To to able to play this game is a handicap in almost any company. You either had to be very good in your job or will pay any time the price. NTs know this by birth, Aspies had to learn this and to learn the rules. I did so on the hard way, and I am far from being certain that will this game the next good, but better than time before.



This one of the few areas we really can point.



I am not that certain regarding this statement - it would not explain, why so many marriages and partnerships between NT and Aspies are difficult. At least can't read the mind of lover. His behaviour seems for me in a lot of respect absurd and unpredicable. When I talk to other NT they see him OK, normal, within the behaviour patterns they see as reasonable.



Even Hans Asperger pointed in his original paper out that a certain amount of autism is needed to gain great achievements. It is not so much the society which pay a price for us being different, it us. But: Society profits from us. The list of Aspies responsible for breakthroughs in technology, arts and science is long.

It is [for the most part] indisputable that spectrumites are wired very differently from NTs. Many of us have done what we have done primarily from a subconscious level of awareness, which resulted in non-participation in social behaviors because we have found them contemptible. I suggest this built in tendency toward judgment of contempt toward inequitable social functions and social institutions is part of our wiring...exactly like a genetic predisposition. And most likely it is precisely due to our tendency to fixate on one or a few subjects to explore in depth..i.e., we have a neurological aversion to superficial appraisals and the consequences of such appraisals.

It could be that at least a significant minority of us--pick up social cues as well as or better than NTs. We processed the information very quickly and very young. How? Through our uber sensitive sensory apparatus. We have unconsciously self-sabotaged those attempts to have us rated, ranked, assigned, and boxed....because we couldn't stomach the results. Many of us have ensured we would fail because we would rather be on the side-lines than have a miserable life of slavishly fulfilling rank-related expectations, playing rank-related games, and doing our part in perpetuating the rank-related rituals and initiations of new members of the group to which we 'belonged'. Many of us would rather not belong to something we felt we intrinsically didn't belong to. It should be emphasized this is usually done unconsciously, without our conscious consent or awareness. It is the way we are programmed or wired....unless we want to take control of the process and change it. And even then, maybe some of us won't be able to change it in any significant way.

Because pecking orders and pack behaviors play such an essential role in stabilizing society through fortifying and controlling the individual ego... it is to the advantage of the pack to ensure those who refuse to comply will be punished. The punishment is refusal to extend friendship and fortification to those who are banished, ostracized and excluded. And sadly but frequently the pack 'bully' tries to utterly destroy the banished one's fragile psychological balance, their ego, as well as often inflicting physical harm. The desired result is usually to instill fear in the excluded one. Some of us who feel we aren't picking up social situations intuitively have had fear instilled into us from either our past refusals to comply or our perceived vulnerability. Again this fear is controling our perceptions generally from an unconscious level .

We 'don't get' or we 'become confused by' social cues for a number of reasons - sensory overload being one. Because our priorities are essentially different from NTs, we have often been caught up in continually weighing the advantages and disadvantages of 'belonging' to the larger society of which we are a part. This continual weighing and indecision about what we want means we can't give our complete attention to discerning or intuiting social cues. It also means we don't outpicture clear intent to others.

Many of us get exactly what is going on, however we unconsciously dump valuable social cues because they aren't interesting to us, or because we are too confused about what we want, or frankly because we have had fear conditioned into us. Not having clear intentions in a social setting is grounds for being assigned a low rank. Conversely, having clear intentions in social encounters is grounds for being assigned a high rank. Clear intent tends to reinforce self respect and is a very satisfactory position from which to keep yourself safe from bullies. Clear intent is the opposite of being confused or overwhelmed by sensory and information overload. Clear intent destroys vulnerability. It is an effective antidote to ward off bullies. And it tends to neutralize our own fear, more so with continued implementation.

Clear intent is a software upgrade and it overrides malfunctioning program commands that may have been operating through genetic predisposition to make us vulnerable. It may not always be possible to implement clear intent but IMO it is worth trying.

Even small groups often have their members ranked.

One on one relationships have the best chance of being equal. But even with couples and partners....it usually happens that one of them is dominant/leader and the other is submissive/follower. This of course is not always the case and your experience may indicate otherwise.