Class divide?

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New research suggests that upper class people are less able to read the emotions of others than those from lower social classes. According to psychologists this is because they are brought up to deal with problems without relying on others. Those in the lower social spheres however need to work in co-operation with others, so are more adept at reading faces and moods (Collaborative organism as opposed to creative individual).

Considering that we can't read the expression of others that well but are known for being smarter than the average bear, does this mean we are the same?

Who are that "we"?

But is this a difference in what is learned as opposed to the intrinsic neurology of ASDs?

Because anyone who's smart enough to make themselves rich can't be NT

wait ...young children don't have social classes, they have mothers and fathers....they all rely on their parents....so it would link higher class parents with less emotional display towards their children ---> emotionally deprived childen in higher classes --->tougher individuals in higher classes displaying less emotion? mhh that could make sense but it's a little bit of a broad generalisation, imo....

"We" must mean people with autism. But if you're suggesting people with autism are like upper class people because of having less ability to read emotions, the creative individual analogy probably holds true yes. But not the upper class analogy, because I would think it more likely that people with autism can tend to be treated in an elitist way by the upper class people.

Interesting if true.

I wonder if it is in part a self induced blindness. Having empathy for those of lower financial standing might undermine one's own sense of security. So turning off empathy is a compensatory action to avoid feelings of guilt.

Um... no. Just... no. I know this is a joke, but seriously, it has nothing to do with that sort of thing. That's a prejudice, that rich people are smarter than poor people, and it's just not true.

In reality this is talking about a cultural difference. Upper-class culture puts a lot of emphasis on suppression of emotion, trying to act like it doesn't even exist, and upper-middle-class culture tends to be more about being really brain-based more than emotion-based. Working-class culture puts more emphasis on emotional intelligence. (These are generalizations of course, individual people from either can do either one.) So people in each culture learn different ways of being. But most people in both groups are not even close to autistic, and autistic people crop up in both groups. My family has autistic people going back generations on both sides and until parts of my generation, they were always working-class or poor on both sides (and I'm mixed-class, was born middle-class and ended up involuntarily back down to poor by adulthood). I spent a lot of time around people much richer than me growing up (my parents took out a loan and put me in private school for much richer people than us because I was autistic and they thought if the classes were smaller I'd do better) and there was a massive cultural divide (especially since culturally I wasn't the same as even people of my own family's current income bracket at the time, let alone rich people). They could spot those of us who weren't from their income bracket on sight even when we weren't neuro-atypical.

I have a feeling this implausible theory will turn out to have been based on scanty data poorly collected. As Anbuend pointed out, the culture that rich people grow up in is, in some parts of the world, slanted towards suppressing overt displays of emotion. I wouldn't be surprised if the researchers mixed up this suppression of emotional display with an inability to read emotion.




The researchers are absolutely wrong about this. I don't know what could have possibly led them to even have it as a theory.


Those in every social sphere need to work with others and be adept at reading faces and moods. I have no idea what led the researchers to believe rich people are exempt from this, but whatever it was, they are wrong.



No. Because this reseacrh is nonsense.

edited to add; These researchers have never heard of rich people "pulling strings" to get out of trouble? Really? Never? They've never heard of croneyism and the Old Boy Network? They don't know about deals that are made using mostly the game of golf and a whole lot of innuendo? Idiots!

Last edited by Janissy on 07 Dec 2010, 2:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yeah, it has nothing to do with intelligence, but in all seriousness, I do think the "Aspie type" is more likely to devote themselves to a venture and get rich then an NT. That's just an opinion, though, and the previous post was just a joke.

I've always thought the acquisition of wealth was more about power than money. Power seems more an NT thing. I can see an Aspie becoming rich as a by-product of their hyper-focus, but the focus isn't on getting rich. I suppose if getting rich were the object of such hyper-focus, then an Aspie could become very wealthy.

It's an opinion that sounds based on too narrow a concept of "venture". Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and various people who got wealthy with tech startups may be Aspie or BAP. But technology is not the only way to get rich. There are people who get rich because they are just that good at cutting deals and networking and knowing just the right thing to say to just the right person at just the right time so that their empire of real estate/ restauraunts/sports teams etc,. grows and grows. And those people are most likely NT.

edited to add; I see wavefreak types faster than me. So...what he said.

Depends on the person. I'd personally like both money and power, but getting rich is my main obsession so I thank you for the support



True, but then, a lot of us spend our lives acting like NTs, so we shouldn't find too hard to act nice to the right people and do networking. I think I've been pretty decent at networking myself, so far.

There's also an Aspie hedge fund manger who made a lot from shorting subprime mortgages (and this is the financial world, so by "a lot", I'm talking closer to a billion than a million).

Also a lot of rich people are rich because their families are rich and have been since seemingly forever.

But yeah my family's jump to the middle class did happen in part because my autistic father was a good technician (and technicians were in great demand at the exact time he went into working), it can help some people for jobs like that. On the other hand, because of my particular variant of autism, despite an interest in science and stuff the only jobs I could sustain were the repetitive physical kind (anything requiring much more thought that that just made my brain crash and burn after a time), so even if this variant hadn't also made me unemployable, I'd be closer to "unskilled" labor. So it can go both ways. But I don't think anyone in my family has the kind of skills that make a person rich.

I heard about this guy. He nailed it. It would be interesting to see if he continues to be accurate. It is common among financial experts to get a big one right and never again make such an accurate prediction. Basically, if a host of finance wizards make a prediction, at least one is likely to be right. It's a consistent track record of wins that is important, even better if there are a few bad calls as well. Only frauds get it "right" all the time and then only by cooking the books.