Theory of Mind

Lingthusiasm 59, Are You Thinking What I'm Thinking, looks at Theory of Mind from a more basic perspective, of childhood development and how TOM reflects in language. (Transcript available.) It includes the fun exercise of thinking how one would create a forwardable email to someone who already knows all the info and will distribute it under their own name.  The juggling of which mind is talking to which, a task we complete fairly automatically, is interesting to contemplate.

Or not.  It might be just linguists and researchers who think so.

Anyway, this is long-awaited, and quite disjointed.  I eventually just gave up in order to move the blog forward.

Why is it automatic for some to ask the questions "How would I feel if someone said that to me?" or "Would this be different if it were a boss asking an employee/ a woman suggesting it to a man/ and old friend versus a new one?" while others can do it very well but need to be cued to ask the questions, and others seem unable to do it at all?  WRT that middle category, is initiation sometimes an Asperger's problem?  I don't think I have seen it mentioned, but I can think of some examples in people I know. As this is something that children do not tend to do but some adults do I tend to view its lack as a childishness, or a direct callousness to the needs of others.  But I wince as I say it, because I know very nice people who display exemplary adulthood who find this difficult .

If we divide things into the World of Ideas, the World of Things, the World of People, we usually assign the first two categories to autists, regarding them as weaker in the third, and I can certainly think of a half-dozen examples of those who are rather avoidant of people, just off the top of my head.  Yet I know some hypersocial aspies, and others that are not comfortable in the World of Ideas at all, much preferring the concrete.  Is it the middle category that is the key one, then, as the stereotype used to be?

I have also noticed that some on the spectrum seem unable to resist their tendency to constantly, quietly enforce their worldview on any conversation. I hesitate to generalise, because I know non-Aspies who do that as well.  Yet it is a prominent feature of a few, constantly working their political, religious, or cultural view into every conversation in a rather obsessive fashion.  And these Aspies seem not to notice it, and in my limited experience from a decade ago, deny that is happening and are resentful.  It's like a slow invasion by a series of hobbyhorses.

What should we be socially consequating?  At what point do we stop saying that we have to be understanding and overlook things?  I am asking this more from a Christian and moral POV than a practical one. Let me make up an example:  A high school boy who seems quite aspie asks a girl to a dance. Yet at the end of the night she is humiliated because he has not danced with her. When friends or family try to point out to him that he has gotten this wrong and he gets embarrassed and goes and apologises, everyone is fine with the outcome.  Unless the girl also has issues of some sort and was more than humiliated and an apology isn't enough to make her come around and feel all right about things.  It's easy to be forgiving when there is no harm, but what if there is?

And what if he takes the opposite stance, digging in his heels and saying "But I don't like to dance.  No one has the right to make me dance.  I don't have to if I don't want to."  Efforts to make the distinction that of course he doesn't have to dance, except in situations where he asks someone to a dance, fall on deaf ears. And we know that he doesn't have quite the ability to understand these things as others do, but he's also being unnecessarily difficult.  I am not looking for a set of rules on this, but a set of questions to ask oneself. 

(I originally stated this as Social responsibility, that is something that society can legitimately consequate because it is disruptive, versus moral responsibility. How should a Christian respond to something that looks like the former mostly, but does not quite qualify for the latter if we make allowances for limitations, extenuating circumstances, etc, if that helps explain.)

Related, though it doesn't look it, is the issue of Demand Avoidance. As I err on the side of candor ("Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud," above) I find it hard to fathom the idea of not explaining yourself, or at least explaining why you are not going to explain. There are hundreds of mollifying or polite statements we get used to giving  to each other. "Did you mean to come across as that condescending?...  Perhaps I did not express myself as well as I should have... I see your point Esmeralda, and would ordinarily agree with it, but in this instance..." Even "Sod off, it's none of your business" may sound rude, but it's way better than just not answering.  Politely ignoring something is when you do it for the other person's sake, not mentioning that they are currently unemployed, or have been divorced twice, or embarrassed themselves at this event last year. But when you ignore someone for your own sake it is not politely ignoring, it is merely contemptuous, dismissing them so fully that their voice should not even be heard.

Even at that there are times when it is necessary, when violence is threatened or there is some other safety issue. But in general, the silent treatment is intentionally aggressive, no matter how much it is denied.

Yet that response is common.  It has been made into comedy, by Shakespeare and Moliere, where the audience is aching to say "If she would just tell him that she is the actual princess and not the maid in disguise," or going the other way "if you would just make the accusation that he saw her kissing another man, she could explain that it was her brother..."

(Of course these days it would have to be explaining to her boyfriend that the man she was undressing in front of was her gay cousin who is a fashion designer, but same principle.)

So at first glance it looks as if it should be impossible that we think it wise to just leave so much unsaid - yet it happens so often. Many people just don't want the momentary discomfort of "a scene," and will put themselves - and more importantly put others - through unnecessary pain. Demand avoidance is just running to your room like a schoolgirl, really.

Or am I imposing my emotional preferences on others? I wonder if this activates with aspies more when it is mostly emotional material that they feel unconfident about but is absent when more concret information is being discussed.