Long-term social implications and you?

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How good are you at, fairly quickly, imagining what a person or group or society's reaction will be to something?

Eg: You found a $100 bill lying on the street on the way to meet your group of friends. When you arrive, you tell them enthusiastically. How good are you at predicting what the prevailing reaction will be in a matter of minutes?

In my personal case:

1. I rarely remember to think beforehand what the possible reaction will be.
2. I usually guess wrong.
3. I'm usually extremely surprised that others remember to think beforehand what the likely reaction of others will be.

I honestly don't know if I would tell them, unless it was somehow relevant to the conversation.

Why not?

From my perspective, the question is "why?".

Same here, why tell them? Unless it has any relevence to the conversation I would not bring it up.
And if for whatever reason I did tell them, I probably would not accurately anticipate their reaction.

Last edited by Cogs on 07 Jul 2012, 6:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Everyday, day after day. But I don't especially think I get it "wrong," it's just so many NTs "speak around" their intended meaning instead of revealing their intent and expectation, that I have no choice but to assume what they say is what they mean. Which is rarely the case. Language games indeed.

Another example: if I had been the one in charge of the famous Blue Book, I wouldn't have kept it secret because I would've forgotten to consider beforehand how it might affect the population. And if someone had reminded me to consider it, I would've anticipated it wrong.

Instead of predicting precisely how people will react, I try to come up with a few rhetorical possibilities that could be reasonable reactions to something, then discern what exactly my audience seems to be getting at in response. If the reaction is outside of my predictions, I scan it for logical flaws. That combo deals with most situations. After that point I'm generally either dealing with someone reacting so emotionally that there is no dealing with them or dealing with someone smart enough to have a real conversation about their reaction and position.

I read somewhere that one of the worst things, or atleast a meaningless thing, a therapist can do while having an Aspie as a patient, is to ask them how they would act in hypothetical situations.

I have experienced this myself when my therapist have asked me; "If a friend came to you with a similar problem, what would you advice him to do?", and I sit there like a moron with no real answer to give. My therapist have actually done this to me 3 times now, with similar reactions from me. I guess I should educate her some more. >.<

Go hand in the money to the police station. They'll know what to do with it.

I wouldn't be going to see a group of people anyway (what is this "group of friends" thingy?).

Well, to the original question, I do that almost unconsciously, from a rather early age I learn that how I saw things was different to how others saw them, and taught myself to consider how others would view my actions instead of how they seemed to me. Because of my tendency to do weird things if I keep myself unchecked, And even then sometimes I fail at that.

And about the 100 bill? If I can find the owner then I'd give it back, but if I can't then I don't think the police would do any better. And then, if it's between a random stranger who is not the original owner of the bill and me, I'd just keep it. Then I'd say that to my friends and they would say I'm so lucky and that I should buy them a snack, and so I would.

Wow, you sound very good at predicting people's reactions! It would've never occurred to me, however much I'd thought about it... I guess some Aspies are more impaired than others in this aspect?