Study saying autistic people are too morally rigid. Erm...?

Post Reply New Topic

This study is basically saying that because autistic people generally tend to follow moral rules whether in public or in private, they are too inflexible and therefore not normal.

Isn't it better to stick to your morals wherever you are?

Right Temporoparietal Junction Underlies Avoidance of Moral Transgression in Autism Spectrum Disorder
https://www.jneurosci.org/content/41/8/1699

It`s just worded confusingly, when they mean moral, they are referring to rigid thinking getting in the way of important decision making of a higher priority, not the religious thou shall not kill.

Rigid thinking is a main component of autism & it's sometimes composed of executive thinking

NT`s I had described tend to have a constant list of immediate short-term objectives that are constantly adjusted for priority.

For a crude example an autistic person may have a rigid view of being punctual and on time for everything, nothing wrong with that until they are just about to walk out the door & smell burning.

The NT will immediately adjust the list of objectives to have investigate the burning smell first before leaving the home, Afterall a burned down home & being homeless & with all your stuff destroyed is worse than being late for work.

The punctual autistic person may not be able to adjust the list and will simply leave the home & come back to a burned out shell.

This is a simplistic made up example but shows why rigid thinking is not a trivial thing and is classified as a disorder

I notice people will bend rules to suit their needs and decide to change them and they decide when a moral or principle doesn't apply. I notice I have pissed people off with this mindset I have. Either it's wrong or it's not. No double standards, you don't have the right to fat shame your partner and then get upset when he does the same to you and you don't get to make up excuses like you are pregnant or other things. What about the guy, aren't his issues valid too? Why is it okay to fat shame him by telling him to go to the gym and stuff because you don't like his big gut? What about his mental health issues? And I hate the rating game people play for what is worse only to judge one person or to punish one person than both.

sometimes I wonder if NTs ever not really do something not because they're afraid of getting caught or arrested, but because it just feels plain wrong. Like stealing, lying or hurting people for no good reason.

Of course, I'm no angel, either. About a week ago I had a huge meltdown, maybe even a nervous breakdown, and I knew I was probably waking up the whole neighborhood and I'm wondering why I always get that way in the wee hours of the morning and why the police or the landlord wasn't called. But I still feel like a raging monster. I even talked to a therapist on the phone the next day.

Rigid moral thinking is considered connected to the impaired theory of mind; that is, difficulty with considering other perspectives and seeing things in shades of gray. For example, an autistic person who sees stealing as always bad, will judge the thief without even considering his circumstances, not out of ill will, but because it didn't even occur to them.

However, once these circumstances are made clear the same autistic person might reconsider their judgment in view of this new piece of information.

That being said, this study was really poorly executed, and I'm quite surprised anyone(autistic or not) would choose to give money to some charity. Charities are scams. If you want to help someone, you should help them directly, not give money to some organization when you dunno what happens to that money afterwards.

things that make you go "hmmmmm" - It is difficult to tell "what they mean by that".

Very Simple: I was always told when I would express my feelings to “f!ck my feelings.”

And people wonder why I’m so cold…

I'm not sure that's what they mean, but you could be right.

Incidentally Carlos, I presume you are a fan of Carlos Sainz Jr?

I know what you mean, I tend to stick to my morals and principles and have shocked people.

e.g. my daughter's school friend's dad asked us round to see their new litter of puppies one Wedneday after school. So we went along and he said 'Oh! You came along on the day I asked you to. That's unusual.'

I couldn't understand his surprise. He made an appointment with us and we stuck to it. Isn't that normal? Or it used to be when I was little in the 1970s.

I think there are a lot of nice NTs who don't do things because they feel wrong, but it's the more grey areas that they are inconsistent with.

I read that feeling your worst in the wee hours of the morning is normal, because it's when our bodies are at their lowest. We haven't eaten for hours, we are half asleep, it's dark and spooky. So you're normal.

Isn't that most people however? People will judge someone as bad for thieving (or whatever), then when they find out the circumstances, change their minds. That's why they have juries in court cases.

I've had that experience too, learning to never, ever show my feelings because they just make other people angry or mocking.

As sarcasm I say I missed the opportunity to expose my ex's embarrassing issue and slashing his tires, shame on me for missing out on this. He really hurt me in our relationship.

I have ticked people off by judging the other person too and thinking they are also horrible too for getting back at something that was unrelated to what they did.

Not really, I have seen people still judge someone regardless of the situation. Some people just really don't care and some are too privileged to understand. I have even seen childfree people being angry that a mom got away with trying to steal $300 worth of groceries and it was because she was trying to feed her kids and they recently lost their job so she was struggling to make ends meet and didn't have money for food. Cops were called and he instead bought her some of the groceries and told her where to go for food pantries. No arrests were made.

Your simply referring to ignorance, snobbery and people just being mean because they can.

I think you come from the Uk so you’ll probably remember the whole benefits debate about a decade ago.

Middle class and rich people sneering at those on benefits for being scroungers.

Wouldn’t mind if they were captains of industry or entrepreneurs most just got rich off the housing market.

Sitting on their ar*e all day while their fixed assets rise in value, charging high rents from their buy to let them going to the bank and using that to borrow for a stupid big SUV that costs twice the average yearly income.

Then they have the audacity to moan that their taxes may go to someone disabled to live at a poverty level

Unfortunately that’s not a pathology

I actually live in the US and from here too. Lot of people here hate "welfare queens" and paying for other peoples kids through taxes. I also think childfree people may judge because they're bitter and they know if they tried to steal food to survive if they also hit hard times, they would be arrested so they're bitter. Their anger is just misplaced so they blame the mom instead and are going "no fair, waaa, she gets to steal food and get away with it and we don't if we also hit hard times" when they should be angry about the double standards and how about they arrest no one if people are struggling to have food on the table regardless if they have kids or not?