Cognitive Dissonance...

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Wow!! !

Not a lot of people like that. And I'm not one of them. That said, if someone truly meets those criteria, I would wonder whether it matters anymore if they are NT or have ASD.

A person such as you are describing presumably has the freedom to allow others to think freely as much as he or she, therefore rendering your arguement moot. That's assuming such people are out there. Not being sarcastic here, believe and mean what I am writing.

Beg to differ...
Aspies inherently tend to have a greater affinity with objective truth...
It is genetically inspired and independent of conscious thought, apparently...

Overcoming "cognitive dissonance" explicitly involves the decoupling of a sense of self or worth from a misguided philosophical position.
And, due to the tendency of aspies to have a greater inherent affinity with the search for truth than their NT counterparts, aspies are in a better position to achieve philosophical self actualisation.

I.E. Aspies tend to have a greater desire "to seek knowledge, truth and perfection with a different set of priorities..."

I.E "The overriding priority may be to solve a problem rather than satisfy the social or emotional needs of others..." and even to the point of ignoring their own emotional discomfort in the search for "truth, justice and all that stuff..."

And furthermore...
Characteristically...social status, self image/importance, psychological dominance tends to have a higher priority in NTs than in aspies...

In a nut shell:
Aspies have a greater tendency to focus on finding the facts...
NTs have a greater tendency to focus on finding their place in a social structure and to maintain emotional equilibrium...in comparison with their aspie counterparts...

I think both people with AS and who are NTs can have difficulty with cognitive dissonance for different reasons.

We do stick more to facts but what I have noticed about myself and others that when we believe something is fact we will hold to that fact and be resistant to more information. Eventually though, I will consider that my knowledge requires more learning and welcome in more information.

I might have some emotional instability but I think I can overcome it quicker than a non-autistic person with the same type of mental illness. Actually, I've witnessed it. I'm told I'm more self aware and have my life more worked out than them. I'm always trying to improve myself and I use my logical way of thinking for achieving such goals.

Now that I think of it I think NT cognitive dissonance does have a lot to do with establishing their place on the social hierarchy. The ones I know always seem to be showing off what they know and if people don't agree an argument begins. This might be why a lot of people just agree when they wouldn't usually. I always thought that was used as more of a social form of flattery.

I have known people with autism (myself included) who really stick stubbornly to their own beliefs especially if they believe the information is fact but do this in a far more obsessive way that they will go on and on about it even when people make it clear that they are not even going to bother arguing about it because of how passionately stubborn this person seems who also seems to be have a narrow focused view.
OK, I might be talking about a few people I actually know here. Funnily enough people tend to get into arguments with me when I offer to show them another perspective. They just repeat the same things and it's like they're not considering what I'm saying at all.

I'm not perfect. I get into manic rants, become delusional and can become very black and white but usually I stand for facts. I just need to remember that facts can be updated.

This thread has been enlightening. I'm glad I stayed up late to read it.

Thank you for your positive, open minded and constructive contribution...

I agree self awareness is critical if you want more control over your decision making process...
How can a person make objective choices if they have emotionally inspired "blinkers" creating tunnel vision...
Or if your decision making process involves/is-influenced-by childhood (or other) indoctrination you are not consciously aware of...

One of the things we "need" to be aware of is that there are elements in society who set out to mislead, not for the benefit of the individual, but for some hidden self interest.

Rather than be brainwashed by another "messiah", the focus "needs" to be on educating oneself in how to be objective, where to find information, how to reason...
Once these tools have been honed, they can be applied to pretty much any situation...

In essence, "you" are the driving force rather than someone else who may or may not have "your" best interest in mind...



Younger NTs in particular *tend* to have a greater need to cater to their ego...and *tend* to have a greater need for social status, and *tend* to have a greater need for social relevance in general...

An "ego" focused life form would probably push itself more to effect the environment around "it"...
Social status has the advantage of usually choosing the better resources in a finite system...
It also usually provided a greater degree of personal freedom and options...
And not least of all, social status, particularly in the NT universe for NTs, tends to attract a more "influential" partner usually, but not exclusively, in the form of a sexual/breeding mate.

Affirmative...
Self actualisation isn't an easy path, based on my observation...
And it certainly isn't helped by this fakakta NT dominated universe...

Aspies have a different operating system which is significantly incompatible with the faster, but more loosey goosey NT based social protocol approach...

Much of the problems we aspies have is trying to fit into the NT dominated insanity...
I am a firm believer that the best approach is for us to become aware of the inherently toxic NT social parameters rather than encouraging the delusion that there is something wrong with our way of thinking...
"We are different, not wrong..." to quote a very wise person...I.E. me...

With this firm knowledge supporting us, we then focus on defining where we need to role play to keep the indigenous fauna at bay...

My point is that aspies inherently have greater access to the tools required to achieve self awareness and a greater sense of objective reality...

* We tend to have a greater nature/genetically-inspired reasoning ability...
* We tend to have a greater affinity with the search for truth...
* We tend to have a greater desire to be objective rather than emotional...
* We tend to be in a better position to overcome cognitive dissonance *if all things were equal*...which they are not...

On an even, mutually supportive, playing field, our more scientific/logical/Vulcan nature would make it easier for us to adapt and assimilate (move over The Borg), since we tend to have a lesser attachment to emotional and social considerations...
Simples...or not so much, as Borat might say...

Also consider your assumption *seems* to be that there would be an equal percentage of NTs and aspies achieving this philosophical nirvana...

Rather, I am postulating that, all things being equal, there would be a significantly greater percentage (percentage in terms of aspies in the aspie community as opposed to the percentage NTs in the NT community) of aspies overcoming cognitive dissonance than their/our NT counterparts...

In a nutshell:
* Aspies need to be aware that they are not on an even playing field...
* That the "rules" are skewed against them...
* That blindly adhering to the NT social/behavioural/philosophical paradigms, magnifies cognitive dissonance...
* Aspies "need" to know who they are rather than adopt a 2 dimensional NT persona to fit in...
Simples...