Social rehearsal: Society anxiety vs Autism

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Social rehearsal occurs in both social anxiety and autism.

Autistic people can also have social anxiety as an outcome of their social difficulties.

However, what do you think is the difference between the way nonautistic socially anxious people rehearse situations and the way autistic people rehearse them?

Ugh, I can drive myself crazy rehearsing difficult interactions. Mine tend to be with doctors, trying to convince them that I actually need help, and that I'm not just faking my symptoms for attention (because that's been a lifelong problem for me).

Maybe one difference between autism and social anxiety is that my 'rehearsals' are 100% related to basic survival needs, and I don't worry at all about being awkward at a party. (I just don't go - problem solved!)

Yeah what is that about. Why do they think anybody would fake symptoms? Doctors often seem to just disregard any personal insight. Psychiatrists arer the worst they seem to just want to medicate symptoms.

In order to socialize successfully, an autistic person may need to rehearse a social situation beforehand whether they are anxious about it or not.

The sad part is that if you come across as 'too rehearsed', that's a red flag that you're faking it. And poor eye contact is another sure-fire sign of lying... Ahh, I can't win!

Yes. I need to rehearse many things. Even phone conversations. Simple things not so much. But I always need to play things over in my head and see if what I would say would seem appropriate or not. Because I often say things that are offensive, or give too much info, etc. And even then I have to ask someone else if what I plan on doing or saying is appropriate.

I don't get it either, but during my illness I had a nasty theory about this. I started pushing for a cure, a permanent fix. Doctors kept telling me I needed to "manage the symptoms," not fix the problem. Which keeps you coming back for appointments, keeps you buying medications, kept me yoyoing back into hospital, keeps everyone in business. You get the problem fixed, and that's the end of it. As to faking it, I suppose there are people who do this (hypochondriacs, people with Münchausen syndrome, people scamming insurance companies, etc) but they have got to be a minority. The patient knows their own body, and it is their life. "Gate keeping" blows.

We are all in a way experts, authorities you will on our mind after all we are living in it. If we articulate our needs to authoritatively experts will feel threatened.

Hi Selin. I think thats a good question, if you identify with with ASD, is social rehearsal any different or necessary for people who have ASD compared with who are NT? I think social rehearsal is the same for both, it is done usually to create an impression or effect on another person. People with ASD commonly feel pressured to orchestrate what they consider to be an 'appropriate' response in social.
Creating the response can lead to anxiety, as maintaining the 'appropriate' response, or failing to do so, becomes the preoccupation as you try to mould yourself, using thoughts, to 'become' what you think is correct. The thoughts, and maintaining these thoughts, can become more important than appearing 'acceptable' or 'correct' to begin with.
Autistic people may feel trapped in the maintaining the 'correct' thought process, more so than NT's who may be more concerned with appearing a certain way in public and less so with the thoughts needed to sustain it.
I think this may be because autistic have a less clear idea of what exactly the behaviour is in the social interaction which they want to perform.
If an NT (and i don't really like using such strict distinction, but for the purposes of this i am) socially rehearses something, then why are they doing it? It is mostly for acceptance, or perhaps manipulation. Because NT's are generally more adept at usual social interaction, they may still fail completely, but are less likely to get caught up in the mechanics of producing 'acceptable' social responses. It is more likely to be in more one off situations, or a phase, or if prolonged it may be born out of a belief they must keep up a particular appearance, out of learnt insecurities, or wanting to keep up an appearance to manipulate others.
Rehearing for things like doctors for people with ASD may be partly for reasons mentioned, but rehearsing what you are going to say can be useful, as there is only a short amount of time with a doctor. At a doctors and in some specific situations it is appropriate to be a little rehearsed sometimes.
People with ASD are commonly at little more in their own heads. Peoples personalities are in part only a reaction to emotional responses in a given situation. Animals have personalities in much the same way. Its not a fixed thing that can be defined, but they react and personalties can be assigned to them. If someone is thinking, and not reacting, less personality may be perceived by the viewer. Personality can oil the wheels of social interaction, even if perceived personalities are in conflict, it is still generally considered to be fluid or flowing.
It can be of perverse comfort to believe it is possible to socially rehearse a personality, or way of being for the onlooker to notice. Not having a true self is a root of all human beings fears, ASD and NT.
Living and interacting without social rehearsal can be harder for the autistic, as typically there is less simple responding and more thinking.
An autistic person who stops socially rehearsing, will have more fun and appear to be more comfortable in themselves. If someone with ASD does not copy or rehearse how they think they should appear, they can feel more at ease, and the feelings and responses they actually do have will come through, which is better than pretending, for them, and for socialising in general.

I rehearse how to talk about a topic that interests me, whether or not I will ever get an opportunity to talk about it.
I'm not sure if this is social rehearsal. I really don't put too much importance on the social aspect of things and don't think it out ahead of time.
I don't know what to expect and wouldn't know how to rehearse something like that anyway.

I used to have actual spoken dialogues with myself, and I still listen intently to people's conversations...to get the rhythm of the social interaction. Yes, one does have to be rhythmically attuned with people at the very moment of conversation.

I've always had a problem with this in talking to my mother. She is socially hyperconscious.

I have social anxiety but I've learned that rehearsing doesn't work because things never work out how I've planned so all my rehearsals go to waste.

I'm more of a diver inner these days and that's it.

It can cause me more anxiety anyway if I rehearse situations and I've got no time to be anxious because I have to do stuff.

I do *Exactly* this

Sorry for not replying, I actually wrote a long response to this and tried to submit it but it got lost!! !

if you don't mind me asking, are you on the spectrum?

Yes, of course I am.