Is Arrogance and Self-Superiority an Aspie trait?

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whirlingmind
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10 Mar 2013, 9:10 am

nessa238 wrote:
whirlingmind wrote:
If I have ever felt superior, it's not been in an arrogant way. It's been through experiences where people have so frequently shown me their incompetence that it staggers me they have done something so erroneous. I'm not saying I don't make mistakes, of course I do, but they are usually mistakes based on stress, forgetting something due to anxiety etc. not mistakes because of failed intellectual capacity.

The amount of people I have come across, in responsible positions that have made stupid mistakes or decisions has made me realise that high functioning autistics and Aspies do often have a level of intellectual and logical superiority.

It's not something we should be ashamed of, because we are just being honest, and we freely admit to our deficiencies in other areas that most NTs don't have.

It's like their mental capacity is evenly spread, whereas ours is often counter balanced in another area to compensate for our deficiencies. It's only fair we get some sort of bonus out of this!


Yes I totally agree with this

Unfortunately it's social ability that will always be rated higher than any other skill by the majority


I totally agree with your comment too. Because of our deficits, we frequently are unable to make use of our intellectual abilities sadly. Hence so many of us are overlooked for promotions, are under-employed or cannot find employment. I don't know what's worse, interviewing so badly that you can't get a job in the first place, or as in my case, having a charming persona to wow them with at interview, only to get overlooked and side-lined in jobs, and as I had at my longest ever job, sent on an assertiveness course to remedy my perceived extroverted aggressiveness. I had the last laugh though, as I clearly came out as passive and introverted when tested. They just didn't get that my blunt comments and social faux pas were not aggression, they were the unfailing honesty of an ASC.

Noetic...I really don't class it as a narcissistic trait, that's something totally different. We are just clever and refreshingly honest. NTs can't deal with that.


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nessa238
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10 Mar 2013, 9:15 am

whirlingmind wrote:
nessa238 wrote:
whirlingmind wrote:
If I have ever felt superior, it's not been in an arrogant way. It's been through experiences where people have so frequently shown me their incompetence that it staggers me they have done something so erroneous. I'm not saying I don't make mistakes, of course I do, but they are usually mistakes based on stress, forgetting something due to anxiety etc. not mistakes because of failed intellectual capacity.

The amount of people I have come across, in responsible positions that have made stupid mistakes or decisions has made me realise that high functioning autistics and Aspies do often have a level of intellectual and logical superiority.

It's not something we should be ashamed of, because we are just being honest, and we freely admit to our deficiencies in other areas that most NTs don't have.

It's like their mental capacity is evenly spread, whereas ours is often counter balanced in another area to compensate for our deficiencies. It's only fair we get some sort of bonus out of this!


Yes I totally agree with this

Unfortunately it's social ability that will always be rated higher than any other skill by the majority


I totally agree with your comment too. Because of our deficits, we frequently are unable to make use of our intellectual abilities sadly. Hence so many of us are overlooked for promotions, are under-employed or cannot find employment. I don't know what's worse, interviewing so badly that you can't get a job in the first place, or as in my case, having a charming persona to wow them with at interview, only to get overlooked and side-lined in jobs, and as I had at my longest ever job, sent on an assertiveness course to remedy my perceived extroverted aggressiveness. I had the last laugh though, as I clearly came out as passive and introverted when tested. They just didn't get that my blunt comments and social faux pas were not aggression, they were the unfailing honesty of an ASC.

Noetic...I really don't class it as a narcissistic trait, that's something totally different. We are just clever and refreshingly honest. NTs can't deal with that.


Yes I've always been quite good at job interviews - it's the day to day interactions in the actual job that cause me problems.

I was dismissed from my last job for standing up to a bullying cover manager and disclosing my Aspergers. I'm taking the employer to an employment tribunal - the claim has been submitted, so we'll see if the Equality Act has any actual meaning.



Cfroi
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10 Mar 2013, 2:32 pm

Superior is better than inferior, in way of self emotion.
The problem is, it's not always recognised by majority, who feel fear of something. The instinct that is hard to explain.


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You are sort of neurotypical but shows signs of autism. You probably enjoy intellectual activities more than socializing or maybe you enjoy socializing, but you aren't genius at it. You could be autistic, but may not be.


Cfroi
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10 Mar 2013, 2:43 pm

whirlingmind wrote:
The amount of people I have come across, in responsible positions that have made stupid mistakes or decisions has made me realise that high functioning autistics and Aspies do often have a level of intellectual and logical superiority.

It's not something we should be ashamed of, because we are just being honest, and we freely admit to our deficiencies in other areas that most NTs don't have.

It's like their mental capacity is evenly spread, whereas ours is often counter balanced in another area to compensate for our deficiencies. It's only fair we get some sort of bonus out of this!

Agreed


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minervx
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10 Mar 2013, 2:45 pm

Sometimes.



blue1skies
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10 Mar 2013, 6:03 pm

Well, I don't know if it's an Aspie trait since I know a few Aspies with incredibly low self-esteem who are the opposite of arrogant, but it's certainly one of my traits!
I think it's pretty common among people with Asperger's due to high intelligence and a lack of understanding of other people's thoughts.



nessa238
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10 Mar 2013, 6:09 pm

If you don't mix in a social group - due to being rejected by your peer group, you get used to having no one challenging your opinions on a regular basis and this leads to arrogance probably.

I talk mainly with the person I live with and we think alike on many things hence there's no challenge to our ideas occurring except on discussion boards.



MannyBoo
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10 Mar 2013, 8:58 pm

Thank you, interesting replies by everyone. It seems like around 90% or so, have feelings or have had feelings of self-superiority at some point in their lives, and only a handful said they did not.

Well, i do not intentionally want to feel self-superior, and do not intentionally want to be arrogant. My feeling comes from a logical conclusion, based on my comparisons of myself and others when it comes to performance and results in certain, usually intellectual, academic-related things.. Of course in other areas i can perform worse than others, and even fail, but these are usually areas or things that i have less or no interest in.. Basically in things that are of great interest to me, i will perform much better than others, because i am already interested (or obsessed?) in those things to begin with, so of course, i end up performing better than the rest. My feeling of self-superiority is based on this reasoning.

I do not think i can totally "erase" this feeling of self-superiority, it is a resultant feeling, based on my comparison and conclusion. Of course other people have every right to accuse me of arrogance, because frankly, i admit i am being arrogant in those cases.

However, if i cannot perform well in a sports activity, or fail in a physical task, and others look down on me, then are they not being arrogant and feeling self-superior themselves?? remember bullying?? In that case i am the one being considered the inferior one. Arrogance and self-superiority is something than can be expressed by any human being, AS, NT, whatever.. Too much of that is obviously not good because it can and does hurt others..

I think this can be tempered by practicing more empathy and genuine concern for others. Honestly, i think i will always feel superior in those particular things that i excel in, because i am indeed clearly superior in those things. For better or worse, i notice that my recognition of my own superiority in certain things, easily slips into arrogance, its insidious, an almost instantaneous reaction.. So i want to try to practice genuine compassion, to temper these self-superior feelings, so i do not hurt anyone in any way.

"Intellectualism" (great, but having only this can lead to arrogance) / "Compassion" (great, but having only this can lead to irrationality)..
In my opinion, i must practice all of the above, all the time, everyday.. its like an eternal balancing act..



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11 Mar 2013, 12:08 am

No its not an aspie trait anymore then an NT trait. Maybe honestly and black and white thinking can be confused however if anything I beleave its the other way around as I get looked down at all the time by NTs who feel a desprate need to prop themselves up for some reason.



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11 Mar 2013, 12:18 am

MannyBoo wrote:
Is it?

"Feeling different" is a common thing people say. Well not only have i felt different, but to be honest, i also felt "better" than the people around me.


Honestly, that's how I have felt since I was little. I can remember feelings of contempt towards the other children when I was as young as somewhere between 3 and 5. They seemed so childish and dumb to me. I felt contempt for a lot of teachers because I felt like they treated me like the child I didn't feel like I was.
I look down on people for believing in religions and new age and things like that. I look down on a lot of people, truth be told.
I do feel superior to the majority of people. I can guess how that sounds but it's true.

The only people I feel inferior to, are those who make it their life to fight for the environment and endangered species. They have my unconditional respect.


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Mxzysptlik
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30 Mar 2013, 3:29 pm

paris75007 wrote:
I think the perceived arrogance of Aspies is due to our inability, when we ARE smarter than the majority of the population, to conceal this fact like an NT would, by adjusting the level of conversation to compensate for the other person. Someone with an IQ of 130 will be smarter (as is measured by the medical profession) than 98% of the people they come across. It doesn't make them "better" than the 98% who are not as smart, but somehow it is an undesirable trait to even have the feeling that one is smarter, even if you actually are smarter. I don't understand the NT tendency to think that everyone must be equal in all things, and get mad when they can't compete intellectually. They can go use their gifts, like being able to open doors in life by making people like them, and I'll use mine. Why don't we ever say they are being arrogant about their social skills when they make us feel lesser than them in that area?

That's exactly how I feel. I don't make fun of NT's for being "less intelligent" than I am. Actually, I don't believe them to be less intelligent. I simply think they have different kinds of skills. Or maybe they develop different kinds of skills. It took me a long time to become as smart as I am; I didn't one day wake up a "genius". Right now I'm working on developing my social skills and language skills. And you know what??? I've been making progress, actually.



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30 Mar 2013, 3:47 pm

There are times when I get these "magical" feelings inside that I'm some kind of superhuman, god-like creature. I never express this with anyone but I'm sure it comes off in my body language. My dad has this trait -he's autistic also- and it comes off as megalomania. Sometimes I think he and I might have these feelings because of our outright intellectual and logical superiority to most of the people we come in contact with. People tell me I'm smarter than they are so I'm guessing it must be true. However, I'm hampered by my inability to be social and that humbles me. I don't have much of an interest in social interaction -unless I'm trying to get a date or something. I think if I didn't spend all of my spare time thinking about solving complex problems I would not be as smart as I am, so to call this superior is stupid.



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30 Mar 2013, 4:02 pm

I tend to feel anguish/anger at other people acting stupid, and also refusing help. I've been doing better at letting them work things out or waiting till they ask for help. I am not a very good teacher, as I tend to get frustrated when other people don't understand when I teach them, or feel like they're using me because they ask the same things over and over again from day to day. In that way, I feel like I am smarter than them, and through experience it generally proves true. I have done things at or above that of professionals with no official training. I also recognize my own shortfalls such as social things like not knowing who Michael Jordan was till he was on Space Jam or how I have to count change in specific ways (dollars in sets of 10, nickles in 4 sets of 5, dimes in 2 sets of 5, and pennies in 2 sets of 5, though I tend to count change over twice as fast as my coworkers).


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30 Mar 2013, 4:07 pm

I am not usually arrogant but I can appear so at times.

Usually I don't think of myself as better than others or use any of my skills as a way of belittling them (any skills I do have I wanted to use to help people not hurt them), unless they attack me or try to belittle me first. Then I will bite back sometimes in an attempt to defend myself.

I will also debate my point if I feel I am right about something. Don't we all?

Otherwise I don't really think about it, I just potter about doing my own thing.

I am not really into this whole superiority/inferiority thing. People just have different skills and varying abilities, it is merely human.

What I can do well, someone else can do better. I try to learn from those people.

What I can't do others can, I try to learn from those people if it is a skill I want to develop.

And so on.

As I said to someone once, I am as intelligent as I am intelligent and that is fine by me. In other words I don't mind how good I am at something. I am more motivated by passion and doing what I enjoy than I am by hierarchy, success/failure or being superior/inferior. I don't measure things in that way 95% of the time.

If I am more intelligent than another so be it, if less so be that too. I am pretty sure they have something they are better at than me so it all evens out in the end.



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30 Mar 2013, 4:40 pm

I sometimes get the feeling that sounding/being smarter is offensive to people. I have gone through this before and it makes me think well, dumb ass . . . about other people, not myself.

Here is an example:
I spilled soda on one of our lap tops a bit ago (my fault in circumstance the actual process is irrelevant). t My gf says; leave it on so it dries with heat. Here I am thinking, if you drop water on an electrical socket, it shorts! So I told her, I think I should turn it off. She says no. So I leave it on until it poof! Turns off on its own. It would not turn back on. She took it apart, cleaned it, and turned it on in a bit when it dried (what she should have done in the first place?). I start looking up online the best way to handle it. She gets mad and tells me that I always trying to prove people wrong so I will not be at fault (like I did not take responsibility for the spill in the first place) well she thinks its my fault too that certain keys do not work now. It is eating at me that I cannot sit down and rationally explain to her that leaving it on with liquid could have contributed to the shorting out of the keys, because she will think I am blaming her. She tends to be very logical, but only on her terms. *Sigh* I feel my intelligence is often under-appreciated.

Sorry for the rant but it has been eating at me for weeks now.



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30 Mar 2013, 4:52 pm

Sometimes.


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