Sense of Identity and autism

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Yes. Hold on.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=N61U9PKA


Be careful interpreting stuff like this. I feel that the researcher himself doesn't really understand the results. His task and control choices are strange.

I think Tuttle makes some good points. In fact, some things I've read about borderline personality disorder reinforce the idea that defining yourself by your connections to other people can lead to an unstable and/or weak sense of self.

Also, I'm dubious of research that scans autistic brains while autistic people are doing tasks and then comes to sweeping conclusions based on the brain scans. A similar study was reported to claim that autistic people don't daydream on the basis of brain scans.

It seems to me that autism is more about having a weak sense of others. A weak or strong or absent sense of self may be present.

^

Many cultures (typically eastern) define themselves by their affiliation with groups of people. This doesn't make their SoS weak or unstable, it just means that sense of self has a whole different meaning in that culture.

Let's see...

There's what you think of yourself.

There's what you think others are thinking of yourself.

There's what you're thinking of others.

You believe that the first one may or may not be "impaired", but the last one might be impaired? I think all three are being affected because a lessened awareness of certain interpersonal qualities that naturally arise from comparison of yourself to others affects all mental models of people, including that for yourself and others.

Rephrased in your terms, a lessened sense of others results in a lessened sense of self. It might be "strong", but it's still "less".

I don't think I have an impairment in this area. My sense of self is fine.

There's also plenty of variability, so define "less".

Well, by less, I mean *something* or some set of *somethings* are less. Like, say, how similar your sense of self is to the senses of self that other people have. If you have a lower than average amount of characteristics that you perceive yourself to have (And we're talking about at the level of "meaning" and not at the level of "words") than the average person, that's going to be one difference that will result in a "lesser" sense of self, however strongly you may feel about it. If you have less subtlety or complexity or "richness" in your sense of self, that's another way to be less.

If your sense of self is atypical and unusual and not what most people would perceive of themselves or in others and thus could perceive in you, that's another way it *could* be "less", though the use of the word "less" in this situation might not be the best. Let's say... a sense of self that's less perceived by others.

For example, you might see yourself as being "good at talking pedantically", but most people couldn't possibly see that being a characteristic because it doesn't even cross their mind as they're not like that nor anyone they associate with is like that, so their perception of that characteristic would probably be more like "That person talks weird".

If it's atypical it could 'more'. A more meaningful sense of self.

I think I have a better understanding of myself than most normal people.

Sense of self is sense of self. It's not "that person is different so he's going to have a different sense of self and therefore an inferior sense of self"
Everyone has different characteristics. If other people think I'm weird that has absolutely nothing to do with my sense of self.

The problem with this study is it used a weird definition of self. Wasn't the task something like "imagine yourself playing football"? We have no qualitative data on what the participants were thinking. The results don't seem that useful.. There was an observable difference in the brain but I have a hard time believing his interpretation is the right one.

But the researcher used a whole bunch of complicated words and jargon and had legit pictures and fancy graphs! He *has* to be right!

Looking at it from another angle:
Imagine a person raised by dogs. No human contact What do they do? They bark, crawl, let the tongue hang out, etc.

Their identity comes from the pack; they are a piece of the pack by their behavior. They are a dog. The social structure shapes ToM.
What's in the dynamic here? Possibly one would be an introvert like dog or an extrovert dog, via inherent neurology.

More contact within the group or less-- an Alpha or less.

Someone with ToM impairment would be further from away from understanding the social dynamics i.e mimicking; but would bark, wag, paw, etc.

The bonding would be absent from either side, though. Likely the dogs would abandon this. But is the sense of self greater when there is greater social confusion? The sense of self here in this context would be in isolation or at the center. Me thinks the actuating force of the mind would make one feel greater than the outside, though believing to be dog, yet not the same.

The mental/ intellectual identity would be less, relative to the pack .

I would say I have less sense of social identity than others. I notice a lot of people seem to be able to mould their interests/activities in order to fulfill social needs and kind of define themselves based on their roles and cultural / subcultural identifications. I feel like I'm a lot less malleable than others. I can't enjoy doing what others do or talking about what others talk about just for the sake of fitting in. I'm just not automatically influenced by others the way "normal" people are.

As for social personality, I don't feel like mine is consistently defined. My real identity is more or less defined by what goes on inside my head, a lot of which doesn't ever get expressed to others. In high school and undergraduate college I often hung out with people who were mostly silly and immature and I acted the same way as them at times. I wouldn't say I felt totally fake, as I did have fun. It was just only one aspect of me. My friends knew that I was intelligent but they couldn't really engage me on my level so I was just goofy with them. I didn't really ever share my true thoughts or beliefs with any of them. As I've matured since my middle 20s I no longer feel comfortable being goofy and now feel like I don't even have a personality anymore.

Maybe this isn't unique to autism. It could probably apply to anyone that is gifted on an intellectual level but at the same time doesn't feel any affinity for what is common as "mature" adult socialization. Socially I'm childlike as I prefer doing things, sharing experiences, engaging my curiosity, etc... as opposed to standing around with a beer in my hands chatting with people about families and careers.

This is the conclusion I've come to. It would be a "no win" situation if it wasn't for that very occasional one or two people. It's very rare that I can pull off normal NT mimicry without it being an apparently obvious fake unless it's a very superficial encounter. I feel like this makes people suspicious of me, too (what am I hiding?)

Last edited by Rhiannon0828 on 24 Oct 2011, 3:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't remember ever trying to fit in. I didn't know how and over time learned to embrace my strangeness rather than be ashamed of it.

If you _had_ been ashamed of it before you learned to embrace it, wouldn't you have been trying to fit in at that time? Or why else would you have been ashamed?

How do I remove a post? Just delete it? the "X" is no longer there on the extra, and I don't seem to be able to delete it from the "edit" link either.

Last edited by Sibyl on 26 Oct 2011, 12:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't ever remember trying to fit in or knowing how to even try to fit in. All I knew was that the other kids were mean to me and didn't like me because they thought I was weird or whatever.

I sort of see sense of self as involving the following:

* Your ability to predict and understand your own reactions. This has nothing to do with others. It's things like knowing 'if I go to a rock concert, I'll feel overloaded' or 'I like petting cats' or 'I get very upset if someone tries to make me go against my sense of right and wrong'. You don't need to know anything about anyone else to know these things.

* Your ability to compare yourself to others. Many of our 'personality description' terms are really about social comparison. For example, almost everyone enjoys interaction sometimes and wants to be alone other times, the difference between introvert and extrovert is basically about how you compare on those two things to most people. Or distinguishing between being good at a task or it simply being an easy task.

* Your ability to identify with social categories that you belong to. People are naturally designed to categorize other people, this is the ability to figure out which categories of people are 'like you'. If you say, for example, 'I'm autistic', that's a social category.