Subject: Autistic ‘black and white’ thinking.
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@KatyElphinstone Thank you so much for this thread!
Glad it struck home
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Karvelis, P. et al. (2018) Bayesian visual integration and autistic traits (open access, PMC)
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5966274/
- Tests autistic traits in Bayesian integration and links traits to stronger perception via more precise sensory information.Li, J. et al. (2014) moral judgement and cooperation in autism (open access, PMC)
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3945921/
- Relates moral judgements in autism to cooperation behaviour in a game context.more below
@KatyElphinstone Karvelis et al is excellent, the first time I've ever seen research backing this specific trait, thank you!
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@KatyElphinstone @autistics Between "theory of mind deficits", "restricted interests", and now "rigid thinking", it's starting to look as though neurotypicals commenting on autistics is a case of "Every accusation is a confession".
@dedicto @KatyElphinstone @autistics everything I've heard about autistic people from neurotypicals is something more true of them. E.g. once someone around me said autism is just when someone thinks they're always right, or something like that. I, as an autistic person who's very frustrated with that behavior from neurotypicals, suggested that that's true of most people who are not autistic. Everyone laughed at me as if they had just discovered that I'm autistic and I was still in the dark
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@KatyElphinstone @jessica Maybe she meant "all or nothing"?
Sentences like "Yes, the planet is dying, but think of the share holders", or "Yes, we should save the environment, but actually doing anything is inconvenient, so maybe not?" just don't sit right for anyone thinking this through.
Hell, yes, we do need to do whatever it takes to save the environment. Seeing that as non-negotiable and not wanting to tone it down for the sake of profit or convenience would be perceived as "inflexible black and white thinking" by anyone who has a "more flexible" view of the situation and weighs profit or convenience against long term survivability.
Weighing the pros and cons of saving the environment and deciding that nothing is worth causing even more destruction seems reasonable to me, but is of course as "black and white" as it can get.
@everythingalsocan @KatyElphinstone @jessica
I was thinking on these lines as well. I can probably be described as "black-and-white" when I have taken an ethical stand that shows high congruence with my moral principles (emphasis on "high congruence"... I will have likely evaluated it across multiple fronts), or if it is logically sound, with high consistency across multiple "models" of understanding the world.
I do change my mind if I'm shown some effort to demonstrate that a different opinion would have higher congruence with observations of reality and moral stands. Then I will need time to think (i.e. "run the new opinion through a couple of models").
If people wants a quick change of mind just to appease, or with no clear reason, no, sorry, I've put a lot of energy and thought into this. I expect the same in return.
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2: Probability thinking and autism.
There’s growing discussion in cognitive science that many autistic people:
- Prefer system-level pattern detection
- Track contingencies more explicitly
- Think in conditional structures (“if X, then Y”)
- Notice statistical irregularitiesThat isn’t black-and-white thinking.
That’s model-based reasoning.If anything, it can tolerate uncertainty better, because uncertainty is explicitly modeled rather than socially smoothed over.
️Modern religeous bigoted insistence on eliminating differences has covered up what humanity already knew and crippled our shamans.
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@KatyElphinstone Karvelis et al is excellent, the first time I've ever seen research backing this specific trait, thank you!
Yes, I also found that study super interesting.
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@dedicto @KatyElphinstone @autistics everything I've heard about autistic people from neurotypicals is something more true of them. E.g. once someone around me said autism is just when someone thinks they're always right, or something like that. I, as an autistic person who's very frustrated with that behavior from neurotypicals, suggested that that's true of most people who are not autistic. Everyone laughed at me as if they had just discovered that I'm autistic and I was still in the dark
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@jessica @KatyElphinstone You know what does produce black-and-white thinking?
Abuse.
"You/they did a bad thing. Therefore you/they are a bad person, and therefore everything you/they think or do is bad." Or the inverse with goodness.
And going back to the truism that there are no Autistics without trauma ... could this be the reason for the stereotype?
I wonder if this is relevant to something I found quite life-changing for me recently.
I'd been so puzzled by people I care for might do unkind things. It didn't make sense... and how could I relate to them, if that was them?
Then I read about internal family systems and Yung's work on the 'shards' of the psyche - and how subconscious parts can influence a person without them being aware of it at all.
This helped me to not mentally 'throw them out,' so to speak.
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I wonder if this is relevant to something I found quite life-changing for me recently.
I'd been so puzzled by people I care for might do unkind things. It didn't make sense... and how could I relate to them, if that was them?
Then I read about internal family systems and Yung's work on the 'shards' of the psyche - and how subconscious parts can influence a person without them being aware of it at all.
This helped me to not mentally 'throw them out,' so to speak.
There being a logical explanation changed everything for me.
Up until that point I'd been quite 'black and white' about people (i.e. "if they can behave like that, then I was wrong about them, and I don't want to ever be close to them again").
I've become more compassionate, and also more aware about healing (literally, making 'whole' again) - both in others and myself.
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7. We can be a bit like pattern-seeking missiles.
8. When new evidence comes to light, we’re generally adaptable – even if it takes a minute.
9. That said, we may dig in our heels about things (like change) when we’re anxious or scared.
10. We like gathering data, and interactions that are a true exchange of information.
But none of this amounts to cognitive rigidity or ‘black and white’ thinking
️@KatyElphinstone Another way of phrasing most points on this list is not being ok with passively accepting gas lighting, double speech, reality dodging, and other slight of hand tricks, just to pick cheap and shallow status points in some deceitful social networking game.
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@KatyElphinstone sure. But a great way to trick people into thinking it's not black and white (which isn't a bad thing) is to tell them even when most unreasonable that their point is valid from their perspective.
Because it actually is. Their opinions and theories may seem incoherent and nonsensical from one's own perspective, but since their brains have produced those results they must make sense to them.
Humility helps also. To every theory there are theoretically infinite alternative theories that may also be true. So thinking one's own perspective is the only one valid is not very smart. Instead adopting a "I think it's like this or that" while also maintaining that that can never be the last truth (since it cannot) is a very good way to make people actually listen without alienating them.
It's just like there are no lies, just misunderstandings. If someone seems to not tell the truth, we just don't understand what they're saying. It's like a code that needs to be deciphered in order to understand what they actually mean, even if it seems that they are deliberately deceiving: They do it for a reason. Find out that reason and one can tell what's actually behind those words.
Psychological analysis is a great way to get to know people.
Well, indeed! And if you look at the relational model of quantum physics it seems that literal reality is based on relationships, perspectives, and probabilities.
So reality is literally different from their perspective. Which will nest and converge with a bunch of other realities that you, by definition, don't have access to.
So I really agree about the humility 🥰
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@KatyElphinstone [contemplates getting "clarity is the enemy of oppression" as a tattoo]
Right? I kept looking it up to attribute this quote to someone (Foucault? Lourde? Freire?) but it seems it's anonymous
️(I'd like to think my own brain made it up, but I think it's more likely I read it somewhere
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@KatyElphinstone Another way of phrasing most points on this list is not being ok with passively accepting gas lighting, double speech, reality dodging, and other slight of hand tricks, just to pick cheap and shallow status points in some deceitful social networking game.
Yes, all this!
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@everythingalsocan @KatyElphinstone @jessica
I was thinking on these lines as well. I can probably be described as "black-and-white" when I have taken an ethical stand that shows high congruence with my moral principles (emphasis on "high congruence"... I will have likely evaluated it across multiple fronts), or if it is logically sound, with high consistency across multiple "models" of understanding the world.
I do change my mind if I'm shown some effort to demonstrate that a different opinion would have higher congruence with observations of reality and moral stands. Then I will need time to think (i.e. "run the new opinion through a couple of models").
If people wants a quick change of mind just to appease, or with no clear reason, no, sorry, I've put a lot of energy and thought into this. I expect the same in return.
@marsiposa @everythingalsocan @KatyElphinstone @jessica reminded of an argument with library management last year where they asked how would I feel if another party said that I should organize all the books by color and I immediately said well I would discuss about some of the reasons we have it organized the way that it is, point out that color as indicator is not accessible, etc. etc. and the manager kinda harrumphed, conceded that I had a point, but that I was still wrong to voice an opinion
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@KatyElphinstone @jessica I tend to think I get black and white around principles, specifically, where allistics are happy to compromise / turn a blind eye.
@Cassandra @KatyElphinstone @jessica I've come learn I'm a moral absolutist, at least in some things, but I also think that is an evidence-based position. Golden rule/social contract and all that. If we harm others we should expect to be harmed, too.
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Subject: Autistic ‘black and white’ thinking.
It's framed as a deficit often seen in autism, but... is it that simple?
Autistic people are traditionally criticized for our inflexibility, or cognitive rigidity.
But I think this isn’t the whole picture.
To start with what we know, here are ten things we autistic people generally have in common (refs at the end of the thread):
️ #Autism #Neurodivergent #ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD #Neurodiversity
@KatyElphinstone I don't currently have the spoons to fully engage on this thread but want to say how much I appreciate these posts. I can relate to them, very much!
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@marsiposa @everythingalsocan @KatyElphinstone @jessica reminded of an argument with library management last year where they asked how would I feel if another party said that I should organize all the books by color and I immediately said well I would discuss about some of the reasons we have it organized the way that it is, point out that color as indicator is not accessible, etc. etc. and the manager kinda harrumphed, conceded that I had a point, but that I was still wrong to voice an opinion
@instantiatethis what. No voicing your opinion on a practical matter that affects you directly?
that way of thinking is so foreign to me. -
@instantiatethis what. No voicing your opinion on a practical matter that affects you directly?
that way of thinking is so foreign to me.@marsiposa something something about the job needing to be welcoming and developing partnerships and I am a poor communicator if I don't do that. Its been a whole stressful thing where my normally flying at least a little under the neurospice radar has become sooooo obvious because I just cannot with them
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@KatyElphinstone @autistics Between "theory of mind deficits", "restricted interests", and now "rigid thinking", it's starting to look as though neurotypicals commenting on autistics is a case of "Every accusation is a confession".
@dedicto @KatyElphinstone @autistics this^^^^^^ Ive had an almost impossible time even discussing this online or elsewhere, and Ive basically just been throwing words into the void on this for a decade or more.
With rising pop culture self-diagnoses, the insistence in those who self diagnose that they are now in a special group, and the insistence of the fascist state... that there is a reason to make lists of those folks.... its critical we get some insights, illumination, ASAP!
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@dedicto @KatyElphinstone @autistics
Projection. Yes, I've suspected this for a while, right down to the origin of the word "autistic" being "a person's retreat from reality into their own subjective world".@murdoc @dedicto @KatyElphinstone @autistics I.... think a lot about Dr Asperger, Hitler, and his people, who took pre-existing sciences and pseudosciences on personality "disorders" and hammered them into the shape of modern "aspergers" or "autism", which was of course then used to determine who lived(curious, quirky) and who died (incompatible with aryan society, too troublesome, wont listen to parents).
I think about this often, and I note: most of us arent objectively "disordered"....
