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Is there an opposite to Autism
Poll ended at 06 Apr 2008, 1:46 am
Yes 71%  71%  [ 32 ]
No 29%  29%  [ 13 ]
Total votes : 45

MeganVegantoast
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28 Dec 2007, 8:13 pm

normal personality disorder?

From what I've heard its a study being carried out to see if even the suspected NT's could be classified on a spectrum. If you notice, there are NT's who obsess over social norms and traditions and then there are some NT's who could care less about social norms, but follow them anyways.

The ones who obsess with social norms and socialization in general are the ones to be typically thought of as having a normal personality disorder.

Its a rather interesting theory. but I think it just goes to show that everyone is wired differently as far as thinking and logic goes. for some people. socialization IS their logic. For others, art or science may serve as a logic. It really just depends on the person.

Wow. That was a huge tangent, sorry. :roll:

Edit: Sorry, I had the wrong link. Its fixed now.



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28 Dec 2007, 9:03 pm

NeantHumain wrote:
In my opinion, psychopaths are the polar opposite of persons with Asperger's syndrome. Unlike people with AS, psychopaths are highly skilled at manipulating others to do their bidding. Lying comes naturally to them whereas truth comes naturally for us. They have no feelings whereas we often suffer from a great deal of depression, anxiety, or other emotional disorders. They are highly sociable and charming whereas we are aloof and socially bumbling.


What you described is a sociopath. Able to charm the pants off anyone, but have no morals other than pure self-serving interests. They will use their incredible social skills to manipulate anyone - friends, family, coworkers, management... they are often found in management because of their impulsive need to dominate and will stop at nothing to serve their own interests, which usually include promotion to gain more power.

You cannot argue with a sociopath, they are simply far too skilled at manipulation. You can go into an argument with an agenda written down and everything, but every argument will be turned aside with masterful skill (even if we recognize how completely groundless many of their arguments may be.) They cannot be persuaded (unless it serves them) and are completely immune to logic. They also cannot be broken of their destructive behaviour because of extreme narcissism - they simply see themselves as incapable of doing wrong.


I've run into a few of these over the years, including my mother. ALL of them have been women.



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28 Dec 2007, 9:17 pm

A politician?

I don't know, but you know it's those people who are the life of all the parties, the popular must-be-around-people that thrive on the social life. Like Hugo Chavez (president of Venezuela, major annoyance of the U.S. and Spain, gets along with with Iran and Cuba and other countries that hate America, controller of gobs of oil).


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28 Dec 2007, 9:34 pm

blonds?

oh, wait, I'm a blond...;)

redo from start...;)



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28 Dec 2007, 10:46 pm

BattleCreekDavid wrote:
A politician?


:lol:

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28 Dec 2007, 10:47 pm

MeganVegantoast wrote:
normal personality disorder?

From what I've heard its a study being carried out to see if even the suspected NT's could be classified on a spectrum. If you notice, there are NT's who obsess over social norms and traditions and then there are some NT's who could care less about social norms, but follow them anyways.

The ones who obsess with social norms and socialization in general are the ones to be typically thought of as having a normal personality disorder.

Its a rather interesting theory. but I think it just goes to show that everyone is wired differently as far as thinking and logic goes. for some people. socialization IS their logic. For others, art or science may serve as a logic. It really just depends on the person.

Wow. That was a huge tangent, sorry. :roll:

Edit: Sorry, I had the wrong link. Its fixed now.


Kewl, we can call socialites NPDed.

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29 Dec 2007, 2:37 am

BlueMax wrote:

What you described is a sociopath. Able to charm the pants off anyone, but have no morals other than pure self-serving interests. They will use their incredible social skills to manipulate anyone - friends, family, coworkers, management... they are often found in management because of their impulsive need to dominate and will stop at nothing to serve their own interests, which usually include promotion to gain more power.

You cannot argue with a sociopath, they are simply far too skilled at manipulation. You can go into an argument with an agenda written down and everything, but every argument will be turned aside with masterful skill (even if we recognize how completely groundless many of their arguments may be.) They cannot be persuaded (unless it serves them) and are completely immune to logic. They also cannot be broken of their destructive behaviour because of extreme narcissism - they simply see themselves as incapable of doing wrong.


I've run into a few of these over the years, including my mother. ALL of them have been women.


You dont have a perfect perception of them. The vast majority are simply cunning and perhaps no more than average intelligence. Most of them mess up enough that they end up in jail. Its only the really smart ones that rise in society.

They make mistakes.. all of them. Because they dont have a good grasp on emotion, they tend to make decisions based on logic alone, and unfortunately, you need a proper mix to make good life decisions. Aspies can have the same problem, and as a polar opposite in that situation, FAS people make decisions purely on whim and self fullfillment. Lots of FAS people also go to jail.

What they do best is confuse and mislead. They pit people against each other too. Manipulation and coercion are big tools of theirs.

But they tend to under estimate people. They dont think that anyone could be smart enough to catch them.

They exist on a spectrum too. The ones that we hear about are the mass murderers and Hollywood versions of them. For example, not all are driven to violence.



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29 Dec 2007, 3:22 am

Fuzzy wrote:
You dont have a perfect perception of them. The vast majority are simply cunning and perhaps no more than average intelligence. Most of them mess up enough that they end up in jail. Its only the really smart ones that rise in society.


A good read on bullies, especially sociopaths:

Sociopath Bully
http://www.bullyonline.org/cases/case8.htm



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29 Dec 2007, 4:53 am

BlueMax wrote:
Fuzzy wrote:
You dont have a perfect perception of them. The vast majority are simply cunning and perhaps no more than average intelligence. Most of them mess up enough that they end up in jail. Its only the really smart ones that rise in society.


A good read on bullies, especially sociopaths:

Sociopath Bully
http://www.bullyonline.org/cases/case8.htm


Thanks, good read. Yeah i saw people do stuff like that when i was a bouncer. But I wasnt charmable, Didnt connect enough for them to get their hooks in. The initial probes for them must not have panned out, and they lost interest. And the truth? Bar staff can be real oddballs, and nobody would much bat an eye at any lies they tried to start about me. And If I got wind of it, or the other bouncers did, they would be in for it.

Or maybe I got really fuggin lucky. But I know of one other aspie that was mostly immune to them,

Thinking some more, I recall one guy, a small man, who was always at the center of conflict.. Strangely, he was never the one with blood and bruises on him. Someone else alwats fought on his behalf, and he would always talk his way back into the bar. One day I had had enough(and his proxy on the staff had left employment with us), and I grabbed him around the neck(chin, really) and flipped him over my back, so that our backs were in contact. By this means I carried him out the door. Like a 120 pound sack of potatoes.

From what the other bouncers said he was gagging and his eyes were rolling around in his head..And I vague recall him later making his plea that he wasnt responsible for all the fights.. people picked on him. har har. No empathy from me..



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29 Dec 2007, 11:07 pm

anbuend wrote:
I think sociopaths are the ethical/social inverse of the typical autistic person in general.

As in, they have the normal range of social and manipulative skills, and no conscience. (They don't have to be excellent manipulators, they just often end up that way because they don't care about screwing people over.)

Whereas most autistic people have the normal range of conscience and usually fewer standard social and manipulative skills. Although we can have some manipulation skills, like Temple Grandin playing practical jokes that looked like other kids did them in school, or a few autistic people I've met who just creep me out with their level of manipulativeness.

This isn't to say that there's no such thing as an autistic sociopath, of course. That'd just be an autistic person who happened to lack a conscience. They're relatively rare, but I think I've met one or two. (Keep in mind the rate of sociopathy has been occasionally said to be 1 in 25, which is very high, so there's always other conditions it could overlap with. It's just that most sociopaths are functional ones, not mass murderers.)

Not even counting the amorality of the psychopath, the psychopath's neurology is the opposite: They have more frontal lobe gray matter than white matter (the opposite pattern of that found in autistics) (or maybe it's white > gray); this makes it easy for them to lie and deceive while not feeling guilty about it. Also, their overall personality and temperament are vastly different from the aspie's: extraverted and sensation seeking (as opposed to introverted and sensation averse), fluid and lively (as opposed to dull and rigid), short sighted and inattentive (as opposed to deeply but narrowly focused), calm (as opposed to fraught with anxiety and all manner of depressions).

The psychopathic syndrome could not occur in someone with full-on Asperger's syndrome because the AS necessarily disables their ability to deceive and manipulate with any great deal of success (or to come across as charming, for that matter).



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29 Dec 2007, 11:11 pm

BlueMax wrote:
NeantHumain wrote:
In my opinion, psychopaths are the polar opposite of persons with Asperger's syndrome. Unlike people with AS, psychopaths are highly skilled at manipulating others to do their bidding. Lying comes naturally to them whereas truth comes naturally for us. They have no feelings whereas we often suffer from a great deal of depression, anxiety, or other emotional disorders. They are highly sociable and charming whereas we are aloof and socially bumbling.


What you described is a sociopath. Able to charm the pants off anyone, but have no morals other than pure self-serving interests. They will use their incredible social skills to manipulate anyone - friends, family, coworkers, management... they are often found in management because of their impulsive need to dominate and will stop at nothing to serve their own interests, which usually include promotion to gain more power.

You cannot argue with a sociopath, they are simply far too skilled at manipulation. You can go into an argument with an agenda written down and everything, but every argument will be turned aside with masterful skill (even if we recognize how completely groundless many of their arguments may be.) They cannot be persuaded (unless it serves them) and are completely immune to logic. They also cannot be broken of their destructive behaviour because of extreme narcissism - they simply see themselves as incapable of doing wrong.


I've run into a few of these over the years, including my mother. ALL of them have been women.

I subscribe to the definition that psychopaths have an innate temperamental predisposition towards behavior such as you described sociopaths commit crime (usually cruder: burglary, drug dealing, gang involvement, assaults) out of poor upbringing and poverty.



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30 Dec 2007, 12:39 am

NeantHumain wrote:
Not even counting the amorality of the psychopath, the psychopath's neurology is the opposite: They have more frontal lobe gray matter than white matter (the opposite pattern of that found in autistics) (or maybe it's white > gray); this makes it easy for them to lie and deceive while not feeling guilty about it. Also, their overall personality and temperament are vastly different from the aspie's: extraverted and sensation seeking (as opposed to introverted and sensation averse), fluid and lively (as opposed to dull and rigid), short sighted and inattentive (as opposed to deeply but narrowly focused), calm (as opposed to fraught with anxiety and all manner of depressions).

The psychopathic syndrome could not occur in someone with full-on Asperger's syndrome because the AS necessarily disables their ability to deceive and manipulate with any great deal of success (or to come across as charming, for that matter).


I don't know about any "psychopathic syndrome", what I'm specifically talking about is the lack of a conscience. Not some list of checked-off outward criteria people assume that happens to mean. I believe that a lot of the traits traditionally assigned to sociopaths (such as extreme criminal behavior, shortsightedness, etc) are really traits of the ones who get caught most often. As for lying and deceiving, that isn't the thing that makes the difference. It's not caring about any moral standards. Probably being aware of them, but not caring at all whatsoever. And I am completely blanking on the term for it, but there is even a name for sociopaths who come off as abrasive and unfriendly rather than charming and charismatic.

I also see that your list of traits of autistic people is as usual not very accurate, either. Autistic people do not have to be introverted, sensation-averse (otherwise the whole term "sensory seeker" would not exist and often be ascribed to certain autistic people), dull, rigid, anxious, and depressed. Moreover, those traits do not make a person more autistic than someone who does not have them. Look at Donna Williams, who is lively, fluid, charismatic, has a short attention span, difficulty seeing cause and effect, etc., and she's definitely autistic (even enough to have serious problems with some things) and definitely not a sociopath. I have also met a woman who was considered severely autistic (I don't know if that is how she classifies herself but it's how most people would classify her) and she absolutely exudes charisma and charm and is far less shy than her father (or than me), and she is not a sociopath either. What defines a sociopath is a lack of a conscience, not the presence of assorted other traits (although some traits -- probably not all that are believed to be there -- may often accompany lack of a conscience).

And I, likewise (to what someone else has said), have run into a small number, but they've been about equally distributed between male and female.


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30 Dec 2007, 3:52 am

NeantHumain wrote:
I subscribe to the definition that psychopaths have an innate temperamental predisposition towards behavior such as you described sociopaths commit crime (usually cruder: burglary, drug dealing, gang involvement, assaults) out of poor upbringing and poverty.


Well, after further reading; psychopath and sociopath aren't too far from each other... I think it even falls under a subcategory, like how Asperger's falls under Autism - so you weren't far off base.


Yeesh... I'm gonna' have to work harder at forgiving that woman! Her treachery still boils my blood! :x



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30 Dec 2007, 4:24 am

I started a thread several months ago on whether the popular concept of "codependence" might be, in a sense, the "opposite" of the autism spectrum. I got mixed responses. However, I know that when I have taken these (unscientific) online quizzes for codependence, I always score in the lowest category. In other words, at least according to these tests, I am not codependent at all.

Here is one of the tests:

http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testi ... 9366070282

Here is a reasonable definition of codependency:

"Codependency is a condition that results in a dysfunctional relationship between the codependent and other people. A codependent is addicted to helping someone. They need to be needed. This addiction is sometimes so strong, the codependent will cause the other person to continue to be needy. This behavior is called enabling. The enabler will purposefully overlook someone abusing a child, will call in sick for someone suffering from addiction, will put roadblocks to prevent their child from becoming independent, or even keep a sick family member from getting the treatment that would make them well. These are behaviors common to codependents."
http://www.way2hope.org/codependency-te ... nition.htm


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30 Dec 2007, 4:32 am

Dogs, because they are highly social animals



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31 Dec 2007, 2:52 pm

anbuend wrote:
I don't know about any "psychopathic syndrome", what I'm specifically talking about is the lack of a conscience.

Except this isn't how the term is defined (although surely many people summarize it as simply consciencelessness). It is defined as a personality disorder with certain traits and behavioral tendencies. I suppose it may be hypothetically possible for a person to lack a conscience and still not be a psychopath (they may restrain from psychopathic behavior for other reasons, have no interest in material possessions or duping others, etc.); likewise, I suppose a person with a conscience could be a psychopath (they may feel it wrong to do many of the things they do but do them anyway).