Do you think that NTs have bigger ego than us?

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I agree.

Never heard anyone think of those with autism as having such egos, but I can see why.

Easily remedied. Some of the assumptions I find questionable are:

Right off the bat, the premise of the title, begging the question of NTs having bigger egos, already setting up an us-vs-them situation, where "them" NTs have bigger egos, but not us autistics!

The implication that even when an autistic person does exhibit behavior that could be construed as arrogant, narcissistic, or otherwise having a big ego, it's not REALLY a big ego, but something else, like stress or frustration or a misunderstanding, that's been confused for narcissism or egocentrism in some way.

The implication that autistics only speak truth, and that makes them unbiased and objective, whereas everyone else (NTs) just lie and fake everything, and are a herd of biased subjective sheep.

The idea that NTs can be easily led along by the nose, with little more than flattery and pretty lies. As many times as I've seen Dale Carnegie's name invoked, I've yet to meet someone who seems to actually understand what he was on about. It is not a book about manipulating people.

Similarly, the idea that NTs do anything and everything just cos the propaganda and advertising tells them to. That they're a single-minded herd, that can all be lumped together, so long as you hand-wavingly mention that yes, there can be some differences, before going back to talking about how they're all the same.

The assumption that NTs in general are obsessed with what other people think of them, and build their lives around these thoughts, as the shallow thoughtless little social butterflies they are.

The assumption that if "society was reversed" and autistic traits were the norm, and NT-ness was the "weird minority", then we autistics would be the functional ones in power and control.

A sizeable amount of misapplied psychology.

So far the most accurate use of the term "ego" has been when SFBUM said that everyone has one, which is correct.

Other random stuff.

Threads like this tend to feel like an attempt to "clap back" at "NT" society in some type of vengeful way.

Autistics are not immune to bias, and are not magically any less subjective or more objective than anyone else, simply from being autistic.

In latin, "ego" means "I". As in, "myself". In the psychological meaning, the ego is just who you are - within society. It's not who you are when left alone in a private bubble and can do whatever you want with nobody looking and no consequences - it's who you are within a society, when interacting with others, with respect to societal expectations.

Egos come in all shapes and sizes, and while a "big ego" has come to conversationally mean "a self-important ego", it's more meant as "an ego that is big, because it's so full of self-importance" - in other words he's "full of himself". As opposed to being filled with a concern for others, or filled with a concern for the community as a whole, or the neighborhood, or the family, or anyone other than themselves. It's just that, conversationally, we now say they have a "big heart".

It's easier than saying "they have strong positive qualities as part of their ego" or "they have strong negative qualities as part of their ego" - esp if you aren't trained in psychology. One can have a large or a small ego, and it can be externally or internally focused - and it doesn't all have to be one way or the other - it can be context-dependent.

I think that's enough for now - I need to go cook some jambalaya.

The idea that autistic people are egocentric is elementary and goes back to the etymology of the word 'autism' which is essentially a Greek word for 'self'.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8407857.stm

I have come across many times in research on autism that autistic people appear outwardly to be self-centred and have difficulties in 'give and take' play and things like that, because of a lack of self awareness in most cases.

Also, a lot of autistic people with special interests will ramble on about those without paying attention to the audience who is in receipt of such a monologue, which is a good example of the egocentrism/lack of thought for another persons company.

Not to mention the issue of autistic people having difficulty with understanding other people's thoughts and feelings and being especially concerned with their own thoughts and feelings, in many cases.

Autistic people are often described as "being in their own world" which comes across as egocentric in the social sphere.

That's why I tend to substitute the word "mainstreamers" for "NTs." And I'm not even sure there's such a thing as a dyed-in-the-wool mainstreamer. It's hard to find anybody who self-identifies as such. We're all individuals.

I never knew anybody personally who thought that either.
But there's a website called AS Partners, full of NTs who have autistic spouses. They often confuse ASD with narcissism. Can't get a bigger ego than a narcissist.

I too can see how the misjudgement can happen. It seems to be a fairly common thing that when one person doesn't understand the reason for another's behaviour, if the behaviour annoys them then they'll latch onto any convenient pejorative as the explanation.

And maybe there's a bit of food for thought here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/aspergers/comm ... d_and_ego/

One smoking gun in his work is where he recommends the tactic of making the other guy think your idea was his idea, so that he'll do what you want him to do. It's not a book entirely about manipulation, but his main theme is to appeal to people's ego to get them to like you and to influence them. The man was a salesman, and salesmen aren't reknowned for telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I think that shows up in a lot of places in his stuff about friendship.

I can only speak from personal experience of advertising. I see tons of distortion and feeble propaganda in it, and I have to struggle not to let it put me off the product it tries to promote, it's such an insult to the intelligence. Yet advertising thrives. You've refuted the notion that all NTs will gullibly buy anything that the advertisers want them to. But that's a straw man, nobody here actually said it that way. From my perspective there's simply a difference - if there wasn't, there would be very little advertising.

Yes. Well said.