Neurotypicals and instincts

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Of course everyone is an individual and not all neurotypicals are like this and there are pros and cons to being a nuerotypical but is it me or do neurotypicals seem to be too group oriented. From my experience they seem to have this fear of not being part of a group and run most things through social filters, instead of logical ones. They seem to have a flaw were there so social optimized and have such a desire to part of a group that they'll follow groups even if it's in a highly irrational way. Do you think their brains being so socially optimized comes with a cost? For example they can have the most irrational beliefs full of obvious contradictions and no matter how many you point out. They can still hold on to those beliefs, I thinks it's because most information they receive isn't looked at in through a logical lense but through the lense of would my group support this. My question is does this seem like an accurate observation, have others noticed this and do other autistic people lack this social flaw for the most part and if so do you think it's an instinctual or is it an learned insecurity?

Last edited by Brandon30 on 10 Jul 2016, 12:04 am, edited 2 times in total.

I think interest in social behavior is instinctual in most people, but the specifics of it are learned. If it were all about instinct, there wouldn't be so many behaviors considered rude or inappropriate in one culture but normal in the next, like the protocols for whom you can kiss on the cheek and when, which can range from "family only, and not if they're women or adolescent girls on periods" to "anyone you're on decent terms with, equivalent to waving hi or a handshake."

It can sure look instinctual, though, when the specifics are learned at a very young age and practiced throughout a lifetime. It's kind of a first-and-a-half nature, I guess.

I just mean at the most basic level not really specific social protocols, for example dedictive reasoning doesn't seem to play arole or at least not much in neurotypical thinking its seems to be replaced or at least to me seem with a weird filter were all info seems to go that tests whether agroup would approve of it. Another example I feel like if there was a neurotypical and he was part of a group that and members of they group had a hardlined stance that blue shirts are the best, if you were to remove the member and put them into a group that had a hard lined stance that red shirts are the best, I feel the member would change their stance to mirror that of the new group they were in.

We have just as many instincts as NTs, some are different. They're just much harder to identify on ourselves, just like any human flaws.

Instinctive is not necessarily the opposite of thinking when it comes to human behavior. It is the opposite of *conscious* decision making, however; is this what you mean? Because when I'm in a full meltdown, I'm going on pure instinct - survival instinct, even - with just enough mindfulness to stop myself from causing harm. So maybe we all (NT & AS) have instincts, and the same instincts, but we don't resort to them under the same conditions?

Insofar as being social goes, there are plenty of NT introverts so I can't accept that (drive to be social/herd/troop) as an example of pure instinct. Unless you want to modify your theory to be that introverts, not autistics, are lacking that set of instincts?

I think you have to accept what neurotypicals are, followers of the crowd you can't hate them for it. You just have to accept it.

There are advantages and disadvantages to most things in life.

Such a filter may exist, but few NTs are conscious of their tendency to align their beliefs with a group. In fact, in our individualistic Western culture, most will probably believe they're doing the opposite: align their group affiliation with beliefs that they feel reflect who they really are and what they think is right. They wouldn't say, for instance, "I watch Game of Thrones because that's what all my hip friends do and I want to fit in," they would say, "I watch Game of Thrones because it's awesome, and I hang out with these friends because they're on a wavelength with me because they also know Game of Thrones is awesome." Psychological research, however, says that most people (NTs) do in fact make their decisions subconsciously due to emotional reasons, which may well include anticipating how other people will react to them (e.g., talking at the water cooler at the office the next day about stuff on TV, Game of Thrones especially), and then appeal to logic or other conscious factors to justify their decision ("Watching Game of Thrones is fun!")

Quite likely...or, if they don't change their stance completely, they'll accept the new group's standards. There have been psychological studies showing effects like this. One of the more famous and drastic was setting up two demographically identical Boy Scout troops into two rival teams, and they started bullying each other, until the teams were brought together as one and made to solve problems as one whole big group, then all of a sudden they were friends. I've also personally caught myself changing my political beliefs based on conformity, adopting the political stances of the people whose political ideas I'm most exposed to whenever I feel like I could not logically make a good argument against their ideas. And then I may feel conflict when exposed to others who disagree with those adopted-for-conformity-reasons stances and can't defend my new stance much better than I could defend the old one. But, see the Game of Thrones analogy above for how I think a more "classic" NT than myself would handle this matter. They would think they "saw the light" with their new group and that the old group is clearly wrong, they just can't articulate why, or maybe just don't need to because it's common sense that their new group is right. Emotional reasoning might be construed as better than logic.

People do this with religion as well.

Yes I suppose NTs do that. I've even noticed it in myself at times, though it's probably much less intense and I tend to know when it's happening - I don't like it either, I much prefer my attitudes and opinions to be mine alone, rather than being brainwashed by anybody else. It was more of a problem when I was younger and more desperate to fit in with my peers. It would work better with positive things, e.g. if they liked a new record that I didn't, I'd give the record another chance, and often come to like it, but if they didn't like a record that I liked, I wasn't going to start hating it just for their sake. I guess with NTs this hive-mind thing is more intense and unconscious. I don't exactly hate them for it, but it's probably one of the reasons why I tend to dislike them. If I find a friend, I don't want them to switch on me and start behaving differently just because their hive tells them to. I once dumped a friend who did that. He started off being into blues and hippie stuff just like I was, but it turned out he was just following fashion, and when that changed, so did he, but I didn't. He started getting really negative about a lot of the stuff he'd once approved of, and so we became incompatible.

People communicate not in meanings but in values, you and your friend didn't value the same things so an exchange could not occur you were incompatible.

A lot of NT's conform and socialize for the same reason Autstics do, life is often very rough if you do not conform or socialize. And when seemingly most are conforming and socializing and there are negative consequences for not doing so it becomes easy to believe not socializing and not conforming is wrong.

The many here who believe thier autism is wrong or mostly impairments and that there have been many non conformist NT's over the years indicates the ideas of the heroic autistic non conformist and the dumb NT's with herd mentality are elitist stereotypes.

It's possible your theory might apply to kids under the age of maturity--but once people get out of high school, they don't tend to follow group trends so slavishly.

Members of a group of high school students tend to look much more alike than members of a group of college students, in my observation.

Then why do neurotypicals idolize celebrities, politicians etc... when they are over 18? Why do neurotypicals still hang out with a group of friends in the weekends? Neurotypicals still follow alphas when they are over 18 unless they are alphas.

Neurotypicals need social interaction which is why they are less likely to think for themselves.

Some neurotypicals follow "alphas"--some don't. The prevalence of this lowers as one gets older.

Even Aspies idolize certain people at times.

Not all neurotypicals hang out with the same friends on the weekends.

Please let me emphasize: you have some neurotypicals who are real jerks to autistic people. That's the problem, really, a lack of understanding. Lots of dogmatism when it comes to how one should live life.

Neurotypicals come in all varieties--from the most sheepish follower, to the most iconoclastic of rebels.

The difference, really, is that neurotypicals are able to discern social signals more readily and instinctually than autistic people. It doesn't mean they actually MAKE USE of what they discern.

This thread was basically tailor made for me to sound off, but I won't, partially because it's too easy (almost always a trap, lol). I will say this to the OP though: you're talking about the actual mechanics of how the game operates, this tends to make people very uncomfortable, so expect lots of blow back by even asking questions along these lines. It's the same process at play as when you explain to a friend how a magic trick was done and they get pissed off and upset: you've broken the illusion and taken away their fantasy.