Are aspies actually BETTER at knowing they're being lied to?

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It's common knowledge that aspies, especially in younger years, are trusting and naive. But when I was a kid and even more so now, I can spot a lie and people's ulterior motives from a mile away. I don't know how and why, but I could do it. Somehow, my aspie mind always put two and two together, and said "Wait a minute! This person is BS'ing me!" Meanwhile, the NTs in my life believed other people's lies along with their own. The problem was that my aspie superpower only applied to adults. I couldn't do that with my peers. Probably because I associated them with Team Child, fellow victims of a common enemy (Team Adult). I therefore didn't see them as sworn enemies, that I saw all adults as, and had a tendency to blindly trust them, except for those actively bullying me.

Here are some examples.

1. When I was little, until age 10 or so, my parents limited my water intake with fervent, angry passion. I was allowed to have one glass of water per mealtime, and no more than that. When I reached for water between meals, my parents would run toward me, screaming, and grab the glass out of my hand. They'd tell me it's because they care about my health, but I knew it was a lie, and it was just a power trip for them. I mean, it's water!

2. When I was in 1st thru 3rd grade, my parents signed me up for evening swim lessons during the time my favorite TV show was on. When I objected, they screamed at me for 20 minutes, about how they care about my health and I don't appreciate it. Then they left me crying on my bed. I knew the "health" part was a bold-faced lie, and they did it to limit the amount of pleasure in my life, even a 30-minute TV show. Because childhood isn't supposed to be happy.

3. During my school years, my parents literally demanded straight A's. Even B's were frowned upon. C's resulted in me getting screamed at for two hours, followed by two weeks of grounding and loss of TV privileges. When I got a D once, I came up with a suicide plan to ____. (I never carried it out, because they didn't see the D.) The excuse they gave was that "they care about my future", but I knew they just enjoyed me being afraid of their wrath. The "future" part didn't come true until this year, when I got a moderately stressful but cushy government job. It's an in-office job. Before then, I worked extremely stressful jobs that didn't pay well, and had me abusing alcohol and contemplating suicide. All despite never getting less than a 3.4 GPA most school terms, and occasionally even a 4.0.

4. When I was in the\rapy as a teenager, and complained about how I'm not feeling better after months on end. My the\rapist spent the rest of the session lecturing me about how "it's more important to feel better in the long run". I realized that "long run" was a dog whistle for "never", and she was just enjoying seeing me miserable. Plus, she was on my parents' side, not mine. I found my own "short run" fix: alcohol. I didn't tell her about it, so she wouldn't rat me out to my parents.

5. When I started college, I wanted to move out of my parents' home and live in a dorm. My parents said they'd cut me off financially if I did that. And since my job-hunting skills sucked, I had no choice but to comply. The excuse they gave was that "they care about me". I knew it was a lie, and they just enjoyed having power over me. Which was true: I still had a curfew at age 24, while still living with them. I moved out that year, and had to live on Ramen noodles, $1 menu hamburgers, and Steel Reserve beer until I found a better-paying job, but I was finally a free man.

5A. To this day, my older sister pressures me to move back in with my parents, but I always tell her to buzz off.

The "who's more naive?" thing seems to change from one to the other often on WP. I've seen threads saying that Aspie children don't believe in Santa because we're "too clever" for that, but I've also seen threads saying that NT children are the ones that don't believe in Santa because NT children have no innocence as they can work things out by the age of 2 apparently.

Your examples seem to be about having a bad relationship with your parents.

No. It is actually a feature of autism, not a bug.

We have a deficit in cognitive empathy--picking up signals in real time. Empathy is not simply the ability to understand others feelings, but also the ability to manipulate and deceive others using the same mechanism.

I have simply had to change my default position from trusting people to not trusting them. That is not because people are not trustworthy, but that I can't read whether they are trustworthy and have been burned too many times.

Now, I can analyze past behavior and figure it out. I just can't do it in the moment.

Self-doubt can be crippling.

I sometimes feel I'm being manipulated, but can't be entirely sure. For one, I've been accused of being deceptive when I was actually telling the truth and had nothing to hide. I don't want to stoop to the same level when I feel I'm being lied to, trying rather to give the other person the benefit of the doubt.

Also, I suspect many NTs are subconsciously aware of being lied to, but don't question it because they behave the same way. In other words, something on a primal level tells them this is the right way to behave, so when others do it to them, it's par for the course.

I think Aspies often take childhood morality lessons about being good and truthful to heart and have a ToM problem accepting that the vast majority of human beings do not...even though they had the same lessons and, on the surface, agree with these good values.

Depends on the individual.

If an aspie doesn't believe, they likely never believe unless there is proof strong enough.
If an aspie believes, they likely drop that belief than keep it.


It's not a matter of sorting out truths and lies, but more about facts and stats versus 'fiction'.

An 'open' aspie will believe things whether they want to or not.
A 'closed' aspie will doubt everything and put everything into scrutiny.

The latter is obviously a safer choice, provided if the individual sucks at sorting truths from lies.

It's more of a matter of being open or closed off, able to control that part of one's psyche.
The nonverbal communication that allistics have are just signals to open or close off.

This is more of a state of mind, not simply a form of trait relevant to aspergers.
But the signal bit that regulates being open or closed off is more relevant to aspergers.



Personally, most 'realists' are not really realists. They're empiricists.

I'm not a realist or a 'realist'.
Just a lucky pessimist. Who happened to be too dumb to fool.


And it's not about power per se. It's about persuasion.
All are hearsays -- it's just a matter of how to get along with the illusion.

I get along because why not?
I wanna see where it will lead to, hopefully something interesting or entertaining. Or else, I'll be ready for it's consequences it leads.

And I can always decline whenever I feel like not getting along with the play, save from my personal sentiments and specific obligations tied to it.

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I can only speak for myself. I'm rather cynical and often suspect people are being less than candid with me, though I keep it in mind that they might also be telling me the truth. Whether or not I take them at their word depends a lot on the situation, on what I stand to gain or lose by accepting or rejecting it, and much of the time I remain in a state of suspended judgement on the veracity of what they've said.

I'm also aware that people can be quick to jump to conclusions and to talk as if they know things that they don't know, without them ever suspecting how biased their statements are, so I don't necessarily think they're deliberately trying to mislead me. I like science so naturally I see skepticism as a useful trait. Most people seem quite easily "carried away." Me, I try to keep an open mind and to run with a degree of uncertainty, always ready to reconsider if new information comes to my attention.

I gather studies suggest that it's impossible to reliably detect a lie from the body language and other physical clues the speaker displays, but that a lot of people think they're good at divining whether or not it's a lie. If I want to know, I tend to try and see whether what they say checks out, and to consider whether or not they might have any clear motive for lying.

I don't see it as my job to believe anything. I might well behave as if a thing is true, because otherwise I'd never make a decision, but it's only a tentative "balance of probabilities" thing.

Well I recall my first grade teacher hated me...cause I'd always question the wrong things she said. But I didn't think I was being rude I just thought some of the stuff she said was wrong so simply pointed those things out. But also I didn't like that teacher either cause she kept trying to make me read baby books when I was already reading national geographic magazines and science encyclopedias. And she'd just gaslight and tell me I couldn't possibly read those things and kept pushing the baby books that I was way past that level of reading already.

I mean I was reading national geographic articles about the rest of the world and interested in that, and my teacher kept trying to push books where the plot was just 'Sam walked to school' can you read the sentence of sam walked to school...and it was like yeah sure, but also most books and reading material are much more interesting than if sam can walk on the mat or tie his shoe or whatever else sam was doing in those stories. I mean sure I was 7 so perhaps the teacher really did think I was full of crap...but I really was reading national geographics and science encyclopedias at that age so I was pissed when adults tried to tell me I couldn't read those things or understand them...when I was reading and understanding those things.

@ToughDiamond:

You raise a good point about intellect vs. intuition. This is why many Aspies claim that after-the-fact the manipulation was obvious, but in the moment they defaulted to accepting the surface value.

When I say ToM, it also ties in with intellect. Intellectually, we can observe and talk about these differences. In-the-moment, I feel both Aspies and NTs naturally, instinctively, believe or want to believe that the other person thinks the same way they do. Since I'm generally an honest person, I assume the NT is being honest in-the-moment. Could be a processing issue. In that social situation, I don't have time to mentally pause and think through all social possibilities, so I default to what comes natural to me. Also, while I understand intellectually that people can be manipulative, intuitively I must be rather naive as I seem to forget just how common place it is, or rather how my mindset is in the minority.

We all learn about ethics and morals and truth and honesty as children. We learn some people may lack or disregard these things. In reality, it's almost like most kids were then given the second "secret" lesson to disregard all that at their own discretion, and Aspies are still in the minority perplexed by human nature.

These types of threads make it sound like all NTs are narcissists, but they are not.

I've dealt with a narcissist before and she is not how I'd describe most other people that I know. Once you figure out that a person is a compulsive liar and is not to be trusted or not worth being friends with, they hate you because they're scared that you have seen through them and that they can't no longer fool you with their lies to make themselves come across as their 'dream person'.

Not my experience.

Yes, I was naive as hell as a kid and as a young adult.

Now as a "mature" person I am much more cynical. It means I am more aware but not innately better. Now I assume people are lying or have some ulterior motive more often than they are. That is not being more skilled.

I still have not figured out if people were laughing with the Sheldon character from the Big Bang Theory or at him. My instinct is laughing at him which when I express that opinion cause near-universal shock and consternation.

So am I NT?