What is theory of mind?

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That is one subject I have thought about continuously for most of my life. Why do certain obnoxious people get away with being so repulsive while others can't? What is so special about them? I used to rationalize and think it was because they were good looking and that must be it. Good looking people can get away with anything just short of murder and sometimes they can get away with that, too is what I told myself. There might be an ounce of truth to that. People are more forgiving, generally, of attractive types.
After reading about ToM I realized that prolly has a lot to do with it too. I can be obnoxious at times but generally I try not to be. Most of the time I'm not obnoxious, not in the same ways others are, and people who are really obnoxious towards me especially get on my nerves. My ToM isn't good enough at manipulating to be obnoxious and well liked at the same time which is how I know it isn't that great. Likeabilty could be a good indicator of ToM capabilites and those of us at the bottom have very poor ToM.
The better people's ToMs are, the better they are at getting away with stuff. I have reached this conclusion. ToM is what gives them the tools necessary to manipulate others so they can do things and say things and still compensate and earn forgiveness afterwards. People become addicted to them. My theory is, Sociopaths have the best developed ToMs of all which is why they can fool so many people. Some might even be aware they are total degenerate lowlifes but won't hate them because they are just so likeable.
My theory on sociopaths is they have very little capacity for putting themselves in someone else's shoes but enormous capacity for ToM which allows them to know what others are thinking and feeling so immediately, it's intuitive and they instantly know what to do and say to manipulate them. They are also keenly aware of the social heirarchy, who they can get away with picking on, who they can't and who they can successfully exploit in order to earn brownie points with those in positions of power within the group. It's sorta disgusting.

I don't understand why people have so much tolerance for disingenuous people. People just love to eat up other people's BS.

Ana, that's my sister in a nutshell. And our cousin, who happens to have studied Psychology, told me that she knows that my sister is evil, but she looks so good on paper that she chooses to be her friend. She knows it's all appearances and in fact rotten inside, but she has a sad life as it is, so she prefers to surround herself with people who sell her a pretty dream (cousin's words). This answers marshall's last question too. People want the perfect dream, not the imperfect reality.

One thing I haven't figured out, though, is why the more manipulative, cunning of NTs are also the more prone to believe and fall in manipulations. This looks like such a contradiction!

And of course, you're right - you need an extraordinary ToM to be like these people. That's the basis.

From the Robert Burns poem:

Ah wad some Power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as ithers see us.

The ability to put oneself in the shoes of another is the essence of Theory of Mind. It is a talent which virtually all neurotypicals acquire between the ages of four and five. For Aspies (like me) it takes longer and we have to do it by a different mean. I learned how to see myself as others see me, but a rather pedestrian and empirical method. I had to work out the rules then test them quite consciously. The NTs seem to have the talent inherently and intuitively. I suspect this ability to see from another's viewpoint is a talent that became wired into homo sapiens early on as is a survival promoting talent.

ruveyn

True. And I have zero of it. Nobody believes me. They say I do it on purpose out of not caring for others' feelings. It was so all my life. It's a hard way to live.

I don't think NT's have any super ability to mind read. I've never personally witnessed it.

I think having the ability to see yourself as others see you has to do with acting. Some people are very comfortable acting. Their entire personality consists of role playing. They play a role in order to get what they want from others. Acting allows people to filter what other people see of them and protect themselves. If they're playing a role, then the role they play is a subset of their true self. That way there's less to keep track of and they don't need to worry as much about making a mistake. As long as they stick to their role their weaknesses aren't disclosed. I'm not comfortable with acting. It makes me feel embarrassed with myself.

I don't know if what I'm saying makes sense to anyone else. It's just my intuitive sense. I could be wrong.

I believe you, Greentea and I know exactly how you feel. Until people realize you have an ASD they think you are doing everything on purpose. It causes lots of misunderstandings.

I have four children and five grandchildren. One of my children is probably an Aspie, the others are NT. I have seen the difference with my own eyes. Normals pick up on body language, face language and learn to shift their viewpoint intuitively. They have the Talent by the time they are five. Aspies take longer. I have seen it in myself (I am an old Aspie) and my very literal minded first born son. We are wired differently from the others without a doubt.

ruveyn

I don't disagree with that but it's off the point. A lot of aspies don't pick up on body language or see things from other people's perspectives but I still don't think that explains 100% why we are different from NT's. Most aspie adults seem to have ToM and are able to read body language to some degree. Maybe as children they couldn't at all but as adults most can.

People here on WP sometimes make it sound like all non-aspies are psychological ninjas that can get inside our heads and make us do things against our will, people who we need should fear and be constantly on guard against. I haven't seen that. NT's misunderstand each other all the time. I see that NT's like to act and put on a show of themselves more than we do. Because they're always acting they're more in tune with how they're coming across to others. They also copy each other's body language more than we do to fit in.

The ToM is double edged sword: Because it works sub-continuous it can be also used for manipulation of people. It works on both side by sending and interpreting non-verbal signals. If someone learned to manipulate sending signals (or just can so as natural talent) he can manipulate the findings of the ToM of others.

Not able to receive those signals has in the most cases its shortcomings, but also make us immune against such manipulations.

Because we can simulate a ToM up to a certain degree with intellectual models. I perhaps do not "feel" that other people are beings with their own mind, but I know this by observation.



At least in my experience NT have no success in doing so with me, because the signals they send to do so are unnoticed by me.



We had to be aware that such communication is going on between NT - in my experience the best way to deal with this is to formalize communication to cut off this way. It is not all situations possible, but it helps very much to bring communication on common terms.

I also would not say that NT are here acting generally out of insult, they are often surprised if we do not understand the signal they send. It is for an NT a hard process to learn that he had to act with an Aspie in other way to get his message across.

Last edited by Dussel on 30 May 2009, 3:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

I think Buddha could escape ToM at times and that's when he was meditating. He stopped all thought at that moment and witnessed nothingness. ToM suspension. I can do it too but not at will.

Without someone doing a brain scan I don’t have any basis to determine that my ToM is purely intellectual or that I process non-verbal information in a way that's completely distinct from the normal method of NT's.

I've read the Simon Baron-Cohen "mindblindness" theory and I can't relate at all to perceiving the world the way he describes. I'd never even thought about non-verbal language until recently when I became obsessed with studying these things. Yet after reading about it I realized that I did in fact have intuitive interpretations for non-verbal signals. I'd just never thought about them consciously before. Even if his theory applies to 99% of aspies it doesn’t explain my own internal experience (note I have a PDD-NOS label only because I was diagnosed before AS came into existence as a diagnostic category).


All the times people have tried to take advantage of me it was due to my lack of confidence and perceived shyness. I could tell in my gut that the person was trying to take advantage of me but I played along anyways for a while because the thought of saying no caused me anxiety. I would mentally convince myself to give them the benefit of the doubt for the time being just to avoid dealing with the problem promptly. I waited for the critical moment before telling them to get lost. Now I always trust my gut instinct right away and adjust my body language to appear more confident. Problem solved.

Believing that NT's are mind-ninjas, cunning manipulators who read our every move is more detrimental than helpful. Paranoid aspies will be targeted even more because in choosing their targets predators always look for body language that signals a lack of confidence.

Greentea, I did the exact same thing you did. I tried to be kind all of my life. I took that statement the way you did. In fact, until I read this from you I thought it meant what it said.



Greentea, I don't understand. How do you derive what your mother really meant from what your mom said. I don't understand the correlation.



I didn't know any of this at all until recently. I thought people said what they meant. As I said, I considered everyone to be my equal. This attitude has gotten me in trouble alot. Greentea I am going to check out your posts big time. I need major lessons from someone like you with more experience than I have.

Greentea, why don't NTs just mean what they say. Why can't they just tell us directly?

In addition, it seems like NTs do not use the dictionary definition of words. Why is that? Why even have a dictionary then?

My siblings derived it by ToM (intuition of what people really are like). I derived it from 45 years of intense analysis. Nowadays I know that my mother wasn't kind herself, except to those she deemed in power over her and who had the power to influence her life positively or negatively.




Because words are a committment. As long as I don't say it directly, you're responsible for what you understood from what I said. I didn't say anything.

Eg: "Sorry I haven't called you (in the last 10 years), I've been busy". If you understand "I stopped liking you 10 years ago", it's YOUR interpretation. You can't hold them responsible for not liking you.

Now I know why I have had many problems and people did things in my life that did not make sense. How did your mothers ToM logically determine from what she really said to what she really meant? I don't understand how to logically derive it the way NTs do. How do I metaphorically connect these dots? At least I know now that NTs do this. Before I ever heard of aspergers I never knew any of this. NTs are a complicated people. The workup of the NT ToM is hard to phathom and to understand logically.

I do have a question though. Do we aspies have our own ToM? I think we do. We aspies seem to communicate with each other just fine and for the most part get along.





Greentea, it sounds like they're friendly to our faces but are fake and phony. I think If I could I would be around my fellow aspies for the most part and deal with NTs on a need basis. Greentea, you, millie, and the others on here are awesome. When everyone speaks on here I know exactly what they say and mean and I don't have to try to logically figure it out.

It's refreshing. I have finally found my neurological home and I'm glad to be an aspie and I'm glad to be chatting on here.