Rigid; Black and White Thinking

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I don't know if this was already asked. What is an example of black and white thinking that is referred to of those on the spectrum?

Loving or hating other people or oneself.
Also works for special interests.
For example I love Science fiction (I'm always surprised how many aspies hate it, but that's another story)
On the other hand I passionatly hate everything related to romance, pop music or hip hop.
It could also be an emotional thing. ASD People tend to have strong emotions, and are often very happy or very sad. So the world is either black or white, nothing inbetween.

Edit: Oh look, you have the exact same post count as I have

You might find this article interesting, and it has some examples:

https://thesilentwaveblog.wordpress.com/2017/03/08/aspergers-autism-and-black-and-white-thinking/

Thank you, Lorrent and yellowtamarin, for your replies. I think I understand the black and white thinking a little better now.

A few examples:

"You are either for us or against us." - Doubt, Indifference, and New Ideas will not be tolerated.

"My way or the highway" - You either do exactly as you are told, or you will be divorced / evicted / fired.

"Guilty or Innocent" - You either committed the crime or you didn't; there are no mitigating circumstances or degrees of guilt.

Those are definitely examples of black and white thinking. But something I should of specified is that I really don't get why black and white thinking is mainly associated with those on the spectrum despite various neurological types displaying such a trait.

The opposite would be "shades of gray" thinking.

Absolutely NTs are often black and white thinkers.

But for some reason some folks claim that its a trait of autistics/aspies. Don't know if it really is an autistic trait. Most NTs never think about the autism spectrum so I doubt that most NTs actually "associate" anything very specific with autism other than "its like being ret*d or sumpin'".

I think black and white thinking is also a common trait of Borderline Personality Disorder.

It's a cognitive distortion, and thus, not exclusive to any one diagnosis or personality style.

It can be quite pronounced in autistic people, but that does not mean all autistic people have it, nor does it mean that only autistic people have it.

A typical autistic example would be "libertarianism is the only political philosophy that makes any sense. Any other school of thought is stupid and fake." Another might be "I have failed at every job I've ever had, I will never succeed at anything." Another: "I have met a lot of NT people and they are all closed-minded."

They're the ones that think in black and white. We just don't hit it quite right if we try to think like them. What makes us different (and a bit inefficient for most things) is we actually think in all the hues that they don't see. Then when they try to understand what we are doing, the whole process of understanding it exposes the black and white nature of the way they think and it looks to them like we are the ones thinking in black and white when it's the reverse. I know it's kind of controversial, but I am pretty sure this is what is happening.

You can think of it like they think in digital and we think in analog. For most noisy communications digital is much better but if you have a lab controlled environment and you don't have a lot of cross talk, you can get an analog signal to be way more precise. Digital 1s and 0s are black and white.

I think I agree, but wonder if you could try to put this in an example? Cheers

Personal example:
My boyfriend said he didn't find a particular thing attractive. I asked "So you find it unattractive?" He said no. But he doesn't find it attractive... Black and white at it's finest? I went around in circles.

So, are you saying that you're a b/w thinker, and he is not (because that's what it sounds like)?

He accused me of being a black and white thinker because I saw it as in if he didn't find this thing in particular attractive, that I automatically assumed it was unattractive.
He told me there is "room between attractive and unattractive, like a grey area."

An example would be if I were married and a really important part of my job as a husband as seen by my wife is to keep her safe. Say at any given time she feels either 100% safe or 0% safe. If she is feeling 100% safe then anything I do to keep her safe or learn about keeping her safe is seen as unnecessary and evidence of my rigid thinking. If she is feeling 0% safe, anything I do not do to keep her safe or learn about keeping her safe is seen as rigid thinking. These are not the only goals she sees me pursuing, as I have responsibilities to take care of our son, maintain my looks and health, do planning, take care of my job, etc. However, when I speak to her, she wonders what I am doing with my time. I know ahead of time that safety is really important to her, so I'll spend quite a bit of my time working towards this goal. However, if I am doing a really good job at it and she thinks she is 100% safe, I can't tell her that I am working on this. I have to tell her that I am pursuing general education, or other long term goals. If I am honest though and tell her that I am working on keeping her safe, she may try instead to get me to work on more pressing goals like help her with the dishes, etc.
Her feeling 100% safe most of the time is really important to her. It makes her more efficient in her life if she can keep those fears at bay and makes her really good at dealing with people and making friends, etc. It makes her appear confident, etc. It cuts out a whole lot of background noise. My thinking about the finer things of safety seems foreign to her. Her way of thinking is you either do it or you don't do it. I love my wife and really want her to feel safe so I develop an interest in it as a whole topic in itself. I am not synchronizing myself with the social expectations though of my role as a husband to keep my wife safe. I am seen as being almost like an engineer in my treatment of safety. However, if I don't do this, I will likely lose my wife. I would much rather develop a passion for this than to end up alone. I can't get her though to ever see this in me because it is so foreign to her.

I agree. I can see many more complicated details of a situation or choice or preference than most others. It isn't just gray, it's all the other amazing hues and tints and even other colors that go into the situation. I am really glad you work on keeping your wife feeling safe. That is a huge gift even if she can't see it.

Sometimes seeing so many facets of each situation makes it more difficult to make a decision and move forward. On the other hand, it allows me to see and experience more deeply.