Intuitive Social Situations Demystified

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Thank you, Sallamandrina!

Here is an article I found, also explaining intuitive social stuff; (well, it´s just part of an article, I pasted what seemed most relevant to this thread). I´m curious to hear what you all think about it! Especially the part where he says "we ALL have the ability to do this". (It does explain a few things though):


t's Derek here and I want to explain to you The Golden Rule
of attraction is: "Whatever you feel, they feel."

If you feel pissed off and frustrated, the other people around
you will also feel pissed off and frustrated. Maybe not as
strongly as you, but they'll feel it too. You storm into your
workplace, "Uh, I'm having a terrible day--Susan, where's Susan,
she's supposed to help me today on this project!"

You're going to make everyone else feel tense, stressed, and
angry.

The Golden Rule: Whatever you feel, they feel.

Have you ever overheard people in the other room watching
television, laughing hysterically. And you found yourself jumping
over with a big smile on your face to see what everyone was
laughing about. Well, you go over with a big smile on your face,
laughing yourself, even though you don't know what the joke is on
the television is yet.

That's the Golden Rule too, flipped: Whatever they feel, you
will tend to feel.

Or how about when the person next to you is yawning. And pretty
soon, you find yourself yawning too.

Whatever they feel, you feel. The Golden Rule again!

Or let's say you're at the grocery store and you go to check
out, and you give the register clerk a huge smile and say, "Hey!
It's a nice day isn't it!" You're going to make the clerk smile
and feel happy too, at least for a moment.

The Golden Rule! Whatever you feel, they feel.

That's just how we human beings are. We tend to follow into the
state of the other people around us, unconsciously and
automatically.

Whatever you feel, they feel. State is contagious. Whatever
you feel, they feel. That is the Golden Rule of the science of
seduction.

You see, human beings have this almost telepathic ability to
sense what each other is feeling. In actuality, it's not truly
telepathic, but what happens is we unconsciously read the feelings
of other people by the rate of their breathing, their muscle
tension, the subtle expression on their face, and the dilation of
the pupils in their eyes.

So we can tell if someone is happy, or angry, or worried, even
if they're trying to hide it, because the physical micro signals
they give off gives their state away.

This inborn, natural, automatic ability to read others and feel
the sensation of what they're feeling is a natural skill all people
possess, including me and including you. It's Telesensation.

And it's because of Telesensation, whatever you're feeling, the
people around you will feel it too. If you're pissed off, they'll
feel distressed. If you're bright and cheery, they'll get a nice
buzz from your energy. If you're bawling on the floor, crying your
eyes out, you're going to bring tears to people's eyes, even if
they don't know what you're crying about.

etc., etc.

Yup, I know. People find it hard to accept that I don't mean to be hurtful or say things I shouldn't. They feel it is a lack of consideration even when I explain that I didn't notice that I hurt anyone's feelings.

Greentea, in my experience, I never get fired for being Aspie, like lose a job because I did or said something wrong. No, what happens is, whether or not it's because I'm Aspie or if it's just the way I am, I do a great job. I can't accept a good job. I work my tail off, like you, almost giving my company my soul to help them profit. It's like I feel like I have ownership, so I'm always thinking company first over myself. And, in the process, I tend to do a very good job. I up the bar. Some people don't like that. They want you to do a lousy job so their lousy job is acceptable. I call these the haters. All companies have at least one on the payroll. These haters will act like they are your best friends, meanwhile, they are trying to get you fired behind your back. They make up things you didn't do, and twist and exaggerate things you did do in order to prove their point to the higher ups. Most of the time, you have no idea it's going on. You have moments where you wander, but then assume you are being paranoid or Aspie and then disregard it. You may even assume if you were getting in trouble, you would know it with some sort of verbal warning.

Because I'm Aspie, I didn't know how to recognize these haters and I still don't know how to deal with the office political war it creates. I once had this awsome job, still my favorite place i ever worked. I loved the work and my immediate boss. But, her boss didn't like her or me, and the HR guy (the one I was boinking thinking it was love) was also against me. I didn't figure him out till later on. But, with the help of my immediate supervisor (a Scorpio woman, they are so awsome), I was winning the war. Right when I had the board of directors ready to fire the evil haters, they trumped me by bringing in the biggest funding source. He told the board to let me go if they want the money, so they did. But they felt bad, so they gave me a nice severence and marked it laid off so I could get unemployment. Considering he was a gov't source, I probably had a good means to retaliate, but I didn't because I'm not supposed to know that's what happened. That meeting was behind closed doors, and i only am aware of it from a couple board members who really had my back. That was my first time fighting back on it and recognizing it. I had issues in the military similar to it, and I recognized it, and in fear I would lose the war gambling with my honorable discharge, I volunteered to get out before it got ugly. My job after that I lost due to politics (and it was the most obvious). The job after that I lost, either due to politics or because I was pregnant. People told me the girl I hired as my assistant wanted my job, but she swore she didn't. She started dating the owner without sleeping with him because he was kinda nasty looking, and eventually he fired me when I was nine months pregnant. He at first didn't want to hire her because she had a 12 year old daughter, and I told him that was a stupid reason to not hire someone, but he was afraid her being a mom would interfere with the work schedule. So when she told me I lost my job for being pregnant (as he wouldn't tell me that or write it out as it would be very illegal), I kinda believed her. I really did when she ended up pregnant from some other guy and lost her job too at nine months pregnant. But I was told she was the hater type by other employees, so I'm still not positive what happened.

Since then, I've been a stay at home mom. With two kids 2 and under, childcare would be outrageous, and my husband just happened to find a job faster than me. Either way, i'm sorry this is long. I'm being hermit this week, and it's really getting to me. I hate it because my hubby is out of town for the weekend, and I already went the week with little contact with the world because my kids had the flu. But either way, he's out of town, my mom only seems to have 5 minutes to talk a day on the phone, my sister and I are not on speaking terms right now, and my friend is being selfish in her world, so I've chatted away in forums and phone calls with the doc's office, future landlord, guy at utility company, etc. I know it's pathetic, but it's my pathetic life. Anyway, I assume my theme of job loss is related to my Aspie nature, and I can only assume what other Aspies go through would be similar to my experiences. It just seems so familiar reading your stories about your work situation.

I'm not sure I agree with we all having this ability. i think we all have the ability to try to set out the right vibe, but I don't think Aspies can read it or always communicate it properly. Someone once posted a link to a little test on this forum, a while ago, where they show faces of people and you have to decide from multiple choice what emotion the person is feeling. I scored in the autistic range, and same with my husband who we think is also a little on the Aspie side. And, I seem to have the same problem communicating how I feel. I get a lot of, "Are you okay?" when I'm in a good mood and a lot of happy people disregarding that I'm upset by something. Even on the phone, with tone of voice only, I tell my friend that my husband and I argued over whether the swing or bouncer was preferred by the baby, and she talks to me like we are ready for divorce even though I wasn't bothered by the argument and was only stating it cause I thought it was funny. Then, I will tell her about a near death incident really wanting to talk about it because I'm having emotions I don't know how to deal with, and she's only half listening, laughing at people in the background, and then has to go mid story promising to call me back and doesn't. Like as if we were at two different bars texting each other about the silly people surrounding us. So, I obviously don't communicate my feelings too well.

But I do think we can read people through other means than heart rate, face expressions, pupil dialations, etc. I read them based on behavior and actions, and I've been doing better with that in practice. I still don't know how to communicate too well, and getting NT's to rely on observation of behavior and actions isn't going to happen.

I know I keep separating the two: reading and communicating, but I would be messed up if I expect everyone to read all my lengthy posts to get that info.

About that article, you describe pretty well what I think, tantybi. I also "read" people based on behavior and actions, as well as facial expression, if the faces are big enough and not too subtle. (I also have a knowledge of psychology, which has been very helpful). It never even occurred to me that people could sense something like rate of breathing, or dilated pupils, or subtle muscle tension. I´m kind of amazed that this is possible! I knew that NTs read others based on facial expression and body language, but I did NOT know that there were even more subtle ways of reading people...

Seeing as you have trouble communicating- and I have this problem as well, when the communication involves something emotional- does that mean that we are not doing one of these subtle things? Do people on the spectrum not automatically show the right muscle tension or rate of breathing? Are they sensing something we can´t help, so, therefore, not understanding what we are trying to say? Could greentea have been fired because the pupils in her eyes did not "dilate correctly"? These are the questions that are begging to be asked, after reading that article.

Another thing is that I didn´t realize how automatically others are affected by people´s moods. If I saw someone crying, and didn´t know what they were crying about, I wouldn´t automatically feel sad. Even if I know what they´re crying about, I may not necessarily feel sad. If I´m doing something quiet in one room while others are laughing uproariously in another room, I won´t feel automatically happy, I might even feel irritated that they´re destroying the peace! I knew that empathy existed, but I did not realize to that extent...The only example that I would feel something is that if the boss were in a bad mood, and it was obvious (i.e., I can see it): I would feel nervous and uptight, not for him or her, but because I would be nervous about when the axe might fall on me, figuratively speaking. Oh, and if someone yawns, I sometimes catch myself yawning too. I think it´s just because they reminded me that I´m tired....

I also read recently that when people watch 2 actors kissing in a movie, it fires up the same feelings we experience while kissing, so we experience something like the characters in the movie. Interesting, however, I don´t notice this happening to me at all, I just see 2 people kissing and I basically feel nothing. Anyone else, or is that just me??? Maybe it´s just been too long since I´ve been kissed ....

This book about mirror neurons in the brain sounds interesting (Mirroring People). I just ordered it.

It is a remarkable skill those normal people have, being able to perceive and integrate all that subtle data intuitively.

And here dumb old me is just listening to what they say, assuming that that's exactly what they mean, and anything they don't mention isn't important to them.

I'm sure that voice tones are an essential part of it too, since I notice that when I talk to people on the phone, they respond to me pretty much the same way they do in person, while if I communicate in writing, they treat me the same way they treat anybody else.

It's pretty obvious too, that the signals aspies transmit are completely inaccurate. It seems like there's a portion of the our brain that's been switched over to a different use. Most people's focus on non-verbal interactions with other people is as intense as our focus on our special interests.

Brings to mind a paper I read a while back on some mainstream health and medicine site that changed my view of things. I've always tended to see honesty as a virtue and considered liars to be utterly contemptible, but some psychologist was suggesting that lying and honesty are learned behaviors.

The shrink was saying that some people have an innate capacity to inspire trust in other people. They learn early in life that people will believe anything they say, so it's easy for them to get what they want by lying.

Other people are the opposite. They inspire distrust in others. Even when they're telling the truth, nobody believes them. They never get away with lying, so they have no choice but to be honest and tell the truth.

Okay, here is a short film about mirror neurons:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3204/01.html


This is new information for me, though I guess it´s been around for awhile. Maybe it explains why I´m not into watching Sports.

So that's why people watch porn. I'm not joking. I really didn't get why it exists.

Great film. I'm amazed my internet allowed me to watch it. Anyway, I remember seeing something similar to that with autism where they did a study to show that the part of the brain that imitates what it sees was much lower functioning for autistic people than NTs. But that makes a lot of sense on this film. Like when he was walking with all those boxes, I didn't think I was carrying the boxes too, but I thought he really looked like he could use some help and all those people were being lazy and selfish to not help him. But maybe they didn't offer help because just looking at him made them feel like they were doing it too.

What I'm concerned about it...I think my hubby may be Aspie and my 2 year old may be Aspie and I may be Aspie, so will the one year old who shows NT behaviors learn aspie behaviors from us?

One of my biggest complaints is that people don't listen to me. Like I say, "Cats are more instinctive when it comes to hunting than dogs," my friend takes it as and develops it into a one week argument that I said, "Dogs have no hunting instinct." Then the argument ended when I finally figured out what she thought I was saying, and I said it in ten different ways including the one that clicked with her is that all I'm saying is "Cats are better hunters than dogs." And then, she agreed with me. Things like this happen to me all the time where people misread me because they didn't listen well. Now I know they instinctively don't use that much verbal communication as opposed to reading around verbal communication. In other words, they are too busy reading in between the lines to really pay attention to the lines. I think that's why I grew a habit of saying the same thing in ten different ways in one paragraph. It's really hard for me to get to the point sometimes. Like i know there's a point, and I know I'm close to it, but I can't figure out what it is. So I rather talk in circles anyway (not on all topics, but some). Either way, I think because most people don't really just listen to you as they are busy doing other things in processing your information, they really need something short and to the point, and stated in a way that it does temporarily make them ignore everything else and focus on my speech for the moment I say it for them to get what I'm saying. Otherwise, they only seem to pick up key words like they are skimming the conversation no different than you would skim a paragraph online. I'm the type to read every word more often than not, so that's what makes it all the harder for me.

I think the important question is not if the one-year old would learn/copy/mirror a certain behaviour from you (or not) - but how well the adults (AS or not) in a family are able to handle any issues that arise. The children will watch & learn from the adults no matter what.

Having one or several aspies that are unaware of / or doesn't care about the consequences of their actions/reactions could be a serious source of problems in a family - and You being aware of it is a good step!
Chances are that the one-year old could have the best of both worlds - including a lot of understanding - if you handle it well.

/T

It's interesting to consider sports in terms of mirror neurons. I once asked someone in detail why they became so involved watching their team play. The first reason mentioned was that they admired certain qualities about the team. But they also mentioned at one point how they'd sometimes think that they could have scored a goal that a player missed if they'd been in their place.

With the man carrying boxes, it didn't occur to me he needed help. All I was thinking was that I didn't want to see the boxes topple and crash to the floor. I'm like that in general--oblivious to wider context. From reading about the subject, I do exhibit many of the characteristics of mirror neuron-related deficits, but not to an extreme degree.



Yes, and it's frustrating. This happened last week when someone relayed a message I didn't like. They read my statement of displeasure about the message's content as being displeasure at them for relaying it. It wouldn't be logical to become angry at/shoot the messenger, but people relaying a message commonly assume that's what others are doing to them if they react even mildly negatively to it.

It's fascinating to study the brain basis of the "hive mind" and its implications. It's sort of disturbing to realise that people's minds are essentially connected in this way; especially since this trait can make the difference between being a complete outcast from society--and not accessing the basic resources it provides--and being an active participant in it. It helps me better analyse others' motives and the past, such as why I was let go for "not smiling" and "not looking as though [I] wanted to be there", why I scared some of the neighbourhood kids ... too many things to list.

this is an issue in my family.
My son seems to exhibit a lot of traits, and is in a gifted ant talented program. I am ASD. He has difficulty identifiying some feelings and has undergone formal diagnosis with a kind of borderline ASD outcome. He has some friends, but seems to struggle with SOME and not all interactions. He is routined in some ways and is sinsgularly obsessed with Pokemon and the pokedex and his DS.

What is important in our family system is the awareness of my ASD, there is a willingness to work with it and find solutions to the deficits, learning how to manage it WITHIN a family dynamic so that my son's struggles are minimised and he gets the kind of connection and mirroring he requires. I have heard and seen myself on dvd interacting and attempting to mirror apprpiorately. I am loud, keen and over-zealous! I don't say to my son ' oh that is wonderful," rather i say ""OH OH THAT IS WONDERFUL" (think bold type here fourfold.) I'm off centre a little,with inappropriate stress and volume, but at least i am trying and working with the issues for his sake. It's frigging exhausting. (I also sound like some kind of monster mum for a John Waters film. Maybe Serial Mum....)

and i like the other kids at his school better than i like the parents.
(I've got them all doing the peace sign...which challenges the redneck parents somewhat. )

One little internet filter has made it a different world for me.

In doing business on the internet I come across as better than most, and my attention to detail is liked.

That can all still fall apart with a single phone call.

There is something I carry through voice that sets off alarm bells, and brings a hostile reaction.

Orders get the wrong parts shipped, or lost in the mail, or bids are five times what they should be.

Pure internet and it just works like it should.

So there is nothing wrong with my business model, just me by phone or in person.