Can you guess what someone is feeling?

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"I can tune in to how someone else feels rapidly and intuitively."

The above is a question on the EQ test (link). For those of you who would answer "Slightly disagree" or "Definitely disagree", I have another question for you:

If you had to, could you guess what they were feeling?

Also, what do you think stops you from knowing what they are feeling? Do you a) have absolutely no idea what they might feel, or b) see too many options as to what they might feel, or c) have an assumption of what they feel but disregard it because you might be wrong, or d) something else?

Finally, if you have an issue with the wording of the question, I'd love to head about that too. E.g. maybe you can tune in rapidly but not intuitively, or intuitively but not rapidly. Can you tune in at all, on any level? Does it depend on other factors, like how well you know the person, or how strong their emotion is, or whether the emotion is negative or positive?

I'd love to hear your thoughts, on any of the myriad of questions I've posted!

Bonus question: Do you honestly think that your peers are better at tuning in to others' emotions than you are? If so, what evidence do you have of this?

I would say that for me it's a mix of B and C. I often have an idea, but will talk to them first in order to see if I am right before jumping to an improper conclusion. It also depends on the person. People I know well are fairly easy for me to read but people I just met or have known only briefly are more difficult to read. Likewise, I can rarely ever judge if someone is interested in me in a sexual sense and usually misjudge it to be anger instead of flirting. The only way I know that it was flirting is if someone who saw the situation tells me it was after the fact. There are a few times when I can tell for myself, but they are so obvious that the only way it could be more obvious is if the other person was trying to pull my clothes off.

I can guess whatever I like.

Doesn't mean it's right.

I can pick up on the basic emotions pretty consistently. Sad, angry, happy, I think are obvious. Now, the cause of these emotions, or what subcategory of the emotion... that's never apparent to me.

In people I know more directly, I can often connect the dots and determine to some degree what's going on with them. Although I wonder if I just think I'm more capable than I actually am...

I generally feel like I'm comprehending what my peers are feeling well enough... it's the appropriate way to respond or reciprocate that always eludes me.

For me, it would be B. There are usually too many possibilities as to how the person may be feeling which makes it hard to know which one.

Nice responses so far, thanks

Do you think that other people are better at making correct guesses, at choosing the right emotion, than you? Or do you perhaps think that nobody is any better at it, but some are happy to go along with assumptions without worrying too much about it?

Noting is intuitive for me. Usually I get the point at least through thinking heavily. A very good question is also what intuitive actually means, because I have the impression that it might be really such that they mean that kind of automatic intuitiveness which works through feelings, not through thinking.
That kind of feelings I have never experienced I think. But of course the thinking has developed to a fast state such that I am able to sense more or less the feelings that I myself know.

But I am quite often off the situation, because I am missing some insights into what is going on.
And there is feelings of others I have absolutely no clue off. Don't even understand why they exist,
just cannot escape projecting my own feelings on others, might sometimes even think these feelings are useless kind of thing

Can you intuitively react to feelings that you don't know? I don't think its possible. Of course you learn some of them but they are always part of a logical conclusion
and maybe you consider them even as stupid NT stuff.

Usually when I am in trouble with feelings of others I have several options which I sometimes can't get clear. Really horrible. so that is like b)
b) depends much on experience.
Then I also have some conclusions which are wrong, so to say c1)

Well it depends very very much on how well I know the other person. Random peoples' emotion? Yeah well some basic ones I recognize
Strong emotions are of course easier
negative emotions are more difficult to handle because there is always the question why?
positive emotions don't requite that much understanding

I'm pretty poor at this. Rather than try to explain I'll use an example:

The other day my mother was feeling very stressed and upset. I sat down and started talking to her about something which had upset me. At this point I was completely oblivious to the fact that she was any different to normal. After I talked for about 2 minutes my mother started to do the lip quivering and tears gathering thing. It was only at this point I realised that anything was any different to normal - I was completely unaware that she was in anything other than a normal mood until she started to cry.

This sums up pretty nicely how not-good I am at being able to read other's emotions. This is pretty typical - I will usually only cotton on once, for example, the person starts crying, shouting, snarling or some other painfully obvious expression of how they feel. You'd think if I'd have learned to read anyone well by age 29 it would be my own mother.

It would be hard for me to know what someone *might* be feeling. Unlike a given problem that can be reasoned through, or finding an unknown by piecing together clues, guessing what someone is feeling is a crap shoot.

Now, for obvious situations, such as s/he has just experienced an awful tragedy, then I can imagine they'd be sad. Or that s/he is happy because they've accomplished something great. But most situations are never this well defined and there are simply too many unknown variables.

Last week my friend/colleague (post-doc researcher), whom I very much like, was resting his head on his desk, sitting alone late in the afternoon. I quietly approached him and asked, "K., are you alright?" I was sincere and worried - maybe he feeling ill. He said, "Oh, I'm fine...." and then nicely explained that he sometimes rests his head when he's reading pensively. I could not have guessed. I'm pretty sure any of my neurotypical colleagues would have guessed though.

In all honesty, why should it matter? I am sorry if someone is hurt, but I cannot tap into their emotional world, nor would I necessarily want/need to, unless there is something specific I can do to alleviate their situation. If any given person with whom I am to interact is strongly emotively feeling X, then I'd appreciate they tell me instead of wishing I'd guess. It's called mindblindness for good reason.

Sometimes I can, sometimes I can't; it is circumstantial. Someone can easily have a big smile on their face, but they're faking it and actually feeling depressed. I would not even know that their dog passed away or something like that. This person might not want anyone to feel sorry for them, so if I could tell that they were upset, that wouldn't be very beneficial either. Unless someone is crying or their face is begging for someone to talk to, I probably wouldn't try to decipher their emotions in fear of upsetting them.

I can pick up on really obvious ones like happy, sad or angry. But when it gets more complex, or if they're only faking then forget it

To do this I use logic, my knowledge of sociology and psychology, and my ability to follow patterns. It takes me longer than it does most people, but I think I am actually at low-NT-normal in figuring out how other people are feeling, if you give me the time to think about it.

What's different between me and an average NT is that I've consciously spent a lot of effort on understanding other people; that, in fact, both sociology and psychology are special interests for me. I'm also very willing to ask people quite bluntly what they are feeling and thinking, because I know that this is not generally taken as offensive and I know that I need the information.

In regards to Callista's post, whilst I need to reason through why, amongst those whom I know I am considered to be especially compassionate. I do care, more than most, and try very hard to help if I can. That autistics/Aspies are "without empathy" is a misnomer. (The autistic "lack of empathy" refers to our inability/difficulty with guessing an emotive state rather than being callous). Instead, although we may be slow on the uptake in guessing Emotive State X, we have the capacity for tremendous compassion. For myself, it can be hard because I know I have fewer emotions. For instance, I can only know jealousy vicariously E.g. reading classic literature. Therefore, to recognise jealousy is intangible.

Reading others on line is more difficult for me than IRL

Many posters online are not honest, whereas IRL you can tell they are lying

Last edited by Surfman on 01 Sep 2012, 1:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think NTs think they can intuit others' emotions a lot better than they actually can. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to fool them about how I feel so often.

InvisibleSilent, I had the same exactly happen to me with my mother. However, I think the problem is not that we fail to intuit the emotion they're experiencing, but that we fail to remember to CHECK the waters before we info-dump on them.

The biggest problem for me is that I don't look at people's faces to attempt to read them. I'm not even thinking about the person, I'm thinking about the topic of discussion, or some random unrelated /thing/. When I do look at their faces I think I can read basic emotions, but I'm never very certain about it, I have to think about it for a while, and I don't know what to do with that information once I have it. I also can't tell the difference between faked and real expressions.