"Aspies less likely to see purpose behind events"

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People with Asperger's less likely to see purpose behind the events in their lives

BOSTON—Why do we often attribute events in our lives to a higher power or supernatural force? Some psychologists believe this kind of thinking, called teleological thinking, is a by-product of social cognition. As our ancestors evolved, we developed the ability to understand one anothers’ ideas and intentions. As a result of this “theory of mind,” some experts figure, we also tend to see intention or purpose—a conscious mind—behind random or naturally occurring events. A new study presented here in a poster at the 22nd annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science supports this idea, showing that people who may have an impaired theory of mind are less likely to think in a teleological way.

Bethany T. Heywood, a graduate student at Queens University Belfast, asked 27 people with Asperger’s syndrome, a mild type of autism that involves impaired social cognition, about significant events in their lives. Working with experimental psychologist Jesse M. Bering (author of the "Bering in Mind" blog and a frequent contributor to Scientific American MIND), she asked them to speculate about why these important events happened—for instance, why they had gone through an illness or why they met a significant other. As compared with 34 neurotypical people, those with Asperger’s syndrome were significantly less likely to invoke a teleological response—for example, saying the event was meant to unfold in a particular way or explaining that God had a hand in it. They were more likely to invoke a natural cause (such as blaming an illness on a virus they thought they were exposed to) or to give a descriptive response, explaining the event again in a different way.

In a second experiment, Heywood and Bering compared 27 people with Asperger’s with 34 neurotypical people who are atheists. The atheists, as expected, often invoked anti-teleological responses such as “there is no reason why; things just happen.” The people with Asperger’s were significantly less likely to offer such anti-teleological explanations than the atheists, indicating they were not engaged in teleological thinking at all. (The atheists, in contrast, revealed themselves to be reasoning teleologically, but then they rejected those thoughts.)

These results support the idea that seeing purpose behind life events is a result of our mind’s focus on social thinking. People whose social cognition is impaired—those with Asperger’s, in this case—are less likely to see the events in their lives as having happened for a reason. Heywood would like to test the hypothesis further by working with people who have schizophrenia or schizoid personalities. Some experts theorize that certain schizophrenia symptoms (for instance, paranoia) arise in part from a hyperactive sense of social reasoning. “I’d guess that they’d give lots of teleological answers; more than neurotypical people, and certainly far more than people with Asperger’s,” Heywood says.

Source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/ ... 2010-05-29

Well, I invoke teleological responses all the time ... I don't think a sample of 27 aspies and 30 odd neuro typicals is large enough for this report to be in any way conclusive.

Yeah, with such a statistical sampling, they might as well be hand-picked.

Something to note, notice the language usage,

Such language is indicative of the conclusions and ideologies of the reporter at the least and probably that of the proctors also and, possibly at least, the questions on such a questionnaire. It may just be my wife and I, but if generalized, Aspies tend to think of where questions are leading and how they indicate the belief systems and thoughts of those who ask them. A questionnaire filled with leading questions would tend to drive away Aspies who are skeptical of the usage of such data.

You mean that the research is supportive of scientific conclusions like evolution?

No, but that the language indicates the nature of the researchers.

Hi iamnotaparakeet (cool name by the way, I'm not a parakeet either) - I know exactly what you mean about questions sometimes telling more about the questioner than they do the questioned. But it's very very hard not to write leading or suggestive questions.

Out of interest, do any aspies have ideas how they would better word the premise of this research?

I would consider "chance or purpose?" to be a general question and give example scenarios.

In regard to human events even:

A person shoots with a firearm at a target and hits the bulls-eye, is that by chance or purpose?
A grenade is lobbed into the shooting range and one of the targets hit is the bulls-eye, is that by chance or purpose?

Something like that, though I know that isn't perfect.

Political purposes topic

I know \i do not always see the purpose behind every political event unless I have studied the event in detail. I do not see conspiracy theories or nefarious motives. I am certainly not paranoid. Perhaps aspies do not jump to conclusions and look for emotional/teleological causation when unwarranted. Interesting idea. We do tend to be somewhat rational.

Personally I've always cast a wary eye to those who attribute major life events to some overarching universal consciousness that somehow has time & interest enough to micromanage everyone's little insignificant life, delivering 'lessons' according to some plan for personal development. I tend to see such thinking as a way of making oneself precious, special, and permanently infantile in relation to the supposed Higher Conciousness. The ultimate eternal, universal big titty.

I'm far more comfortable with the straightforwardness of cause & effect, or karma. Though even that tends to get perversely distorted to once again make it all about the liitle 'me' and judging whether one is a 'good' or 'bad' person.

So regardless of how the survey was designed, it reflects my experience. Fancying some deity or higher consciousness as causing major events in one's life is delusional, much like the whole 'empathy' projection system.

I have had a problem understanding teleological thinking all my life, having been raised a "Christian Fundamentalist", by the age of six I was unable to tell any difference between stories in the "Old Testament", from fairy tales I was reading at the same time.

It made no sense to me when someone died that everyone would say that "God" called them home, no, they died of a virus or what ever. I have simply have never been able to get my head around the need for so many teleological assumptions and assertions that religions make.

Today I m a Catholic that does not believe in the supernatural, believes in evolution, and finds stem cell research one of the great hopes for mankind, but I like the symbolism of the "Mass", ritual is important to me. I am a square peg in a round hole.

Are other Aspies in the same situation?

Almost. At the rate my attitude is changing I'll probably be in the exact same situation within 6 months. If you asked me whether or not I engage in teleological thinking 10 months ago I would've said yes to the extreme. My "what if" brain has been coming up with teleological explanations for things that happen habitually for nearly my entire life. It peaked almost a year ago and now it's been rapidly declining. I can't say AS has prevented me from finding patterns and meanings in unrelated and meaningless things. I've had a very strong incentive to abandon it and it's pretty much a necessity that I don't engage in that kind of thinking. At this point I can't even force it if I try. It was extremely unhelpful and I've grown out of it simply because I had to.

Sort of. I can understand why someone likes catholic ritual. In itself, it´s rather pretty. But I get a serious case of cognitive disonance if I comtemplate the message preached and what is practiced.

I occassionally attend mass and light a candle in a Maria chappel for a person who was catholic. It has nothing to do with belief in an afterlife. I just honour the memory of that person in that way. I´m very picky at which churches I do so. Here in my country there are priests who think much like you do. I think we had the first priest who did not believe in God and celibacy, much to the displeasure of the Vatican. Dutch catholic media also tried to sneak in a female priest. She was extremely popular with Dutch catholics. Again, much to the displeasure of the Vatican. While homophobia seems to be on the rise, even in Europe, the reverse is true in the Netherlands. People are leaving the church in droves because consensual sex between members of the same sex is condemned, and at the same time pedophiles are protected. In short: it´s not the ritual of the catholic church that is the problem. It s the hypocracy. Allow female priests, abolish celebacy, bless homo marriages, proclaim that if you have sex outside of wedlock, please, please, please, use a condom, and make it very clear that the official teaching of the r.c. allows an allegorical interpretation of the scriptures. That they are not the ´only true faith´, and the r.c. should be fine in modern society. Might even attract some people.

Last edited by NewDawn on 19 May 2013, 4:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

In simpler terms, when an Aspie is asked why things happen, the Aspie is less likely to invoke the "Will of God" than a non-Aspie.

I'm an Aspie, and I'm more likely to say, "I don't know" than "God did it" - mainly because I've never personally witnessed God doing anything.

To be fair, that is the language of the journalist, not necessarily the language used on the questionnaire.

One thing that kind of intrigues me are Synchronicities. Basically coincidences that seem oddly related. Sometimes these events seem significant and sometimes mundane.

An example would be that my birthday is July 13th and if on my birthday I bought something that rang up as $7.13.

Or maybe if the Gold ball in the Lotto was 13 that day.

I think some people could possibly perk up and see stuff like this as Omens. I myself sometimes think something is at work, but I don't think that something is intelligent. I speculate that maybe there could be an effect of "Low Randomness" or weird probability.

Or the mind's tendency to seek patterns around significant events. Correspondences & synchronicities are often more a result of selective attention than anything. Two events seem to be related only by a mind that can ignore/dismiss all the unrelated events of the day.

This is how superstitions get started. The whole vague portent tradition is a fascinating study in psychology.