Conformity

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Are Aspies less likely to conform than NTs? This could lead to 'impaired' social interaction, as they wouldn't conform to 'social rules', and would have different interests to the majority.

Um, yeah. This seems kind of obvious to me.

Growing up I had a lot of people tell me that I was such a 'nonconformist' a 'dissident'. It was meant as a compliment... most of the time. The thing about it was that everyone assumed that I was brave for being so different, for going against the grain. To them, my questioning, and not following social norms was a choice. It wasn't a choice, and it had nothing to do with bravery. I can't follow a code that I don't know about. Before someone can conform, they'd have to understand that there is social rules to conform to, then they'd have to be able to carry them out. I doubt that most aspies can do this, at least in a fluent, instinctive way.

Yeah. From this forum, most seem to have "different" kind of interests.

I used to be the "quiet gothy kid"

Non-conformity just kind of happens wether we want it too or not. Never wanted to be that way, just can'y help it.

I suppose that to an NT person, not conforming is very brave, because they're so aware of the social pressure and what they 'should' be doing, and because being accepted by a peer group is very important to most. Whereas we become 'non-conformists' just by being ourselves. We do not know how to be anything else.

I think they are less likely to conform, but sometimes only because of their issues with social interaction - i.e., these Aspies don't know how to conform. Yes, there are aspies who want to conform. I'm dating one. He wants to fit in and be liked so that people won't get mad at him and threaten him in that dangerous and vague way that only people can. But he tends to try to conform too much in the wrong ways, like following religious practices he doesn't believe in just out of fear of losing friends in his birth religion, while not knowing how to conform in the right ways, like hide his displeasure over doing favors for people that will cut into money and/or sleep, both of which are very important to him, or respond to certain kinds of somewhat subtle gestures that mean "stop doing this, you're making me angry" because he can't make the connection between a specific thing he's doing, the person's anger, and the gesture in the middle of his mini-panic over the person being angry at him.

Very interesting point. I remember in 10th grade, we had to write a short essay on why we either saw ourselves as conformists or non-conformists. Even though I had almost no friends, had never felt peer pressure, or ever done anything which even remotely resembled conformity, I didn't know if I was a conformist or not... probably exactly for this reason. I never made a conscious decision to be one; I only knew how to be me, and hadn't really thought about it before.

Trying to be someone else seemed like a very tiring affair, so I never went down that path.

I didn't deliberately set out to be a non-conformist....It is pretty much all I have been able to be...I am not a member of any defined "fringe" group because that sorta requires subscribing to some sort of "group think"...and um...blah blah blah....(short attention span for anything that is not playing the ukulele today)

My kindergarten teacher said that I "march to the beat of a different drummer." That's an absolute lie, of course, my marching is impeccable. But, of course, there was no marching band in kindergarten.

i have never intended to be different or non-conformist. I have always just been so, innately.
It has little to do with courage or strength or bravery.
it is simply the way I am and I cannot help it.

I've been a non-conformist all my life. Just the way I lived and not a choice I made. If people make pottery in the potter's wheel, I sculpt with my hands. If the majority writes fantasy with a Western-like world, tone, and elements, I write a fantasy with anime elements, world, and tone. Just goes to show I just be me, because being someone else would only hurt you in the process.

I hate conformity it only makes the world worse with all these people pretendng who they are

never been a conformist never will

Nonconformity is often just another type of conformity. For example, take goths. "I don't want to be like you so I'm going to dress differently and wear dark make-up". Then they end up simply conforming to just another set of attitudes and values. The moment you start seeing yourself as distinct from X or Y group, you begin conforming to something else. Of course, this is something of a generalisation, but I'd argue that conformity is not something that can be avoided, not truly. Consider a word that's very popular here (for obvious reasons): "aspie". Many people reach the point of defining themselves as "aspies", and there are many people with AS (self-diagnosed or otherwise) who appear to conform to what that word implies. It's what I hate about the whole "aspie vs NT" thing. Sometimes it seems to be a case of conforming to either AS or NT values/behaviours. And that's just wrong.

Okay, let's define it as 'conforming to the will of the majority'. There, that makes it easier. Until you go somewhere where your minority are in the majority...

NTs can decide to not conform, if they don't want to, but that's a conscious deciscion. Aspies are the opposite, they have to consciously decide to conform.

I can think of an example where I kind of conformed in my teenage years, or more accurately, wanted to run along with the pack. This was when my friends in school (all geeks, by the way, and sort of the outcasts of the class/school) were all watching Dragon Ball Z, and talking about during lunch breaks. I decided to watch to, because I wanted to know what everyone was talking about. I remember that I thought the cartoon was not completely to my liking (thought it was very slow), but I loyally watched it anyway for years (and ended up sincerely liking aspoects of it). This was basically the only time that I did something to 'blend' into a group better, even though it wasn't necessary: there was no actual peer pressure involved, and my friends would not have minded if I didn't watch Dragon Ball Z. Afterwards, I felt rather dumb that I wanted to do anything merely to 'blend in better', but perhaps I can blame it on the confusion of those turbulent teens.

I do think that if I had wanted to conform - in spite of the more difficult social development I would have gone through in any case - to the majority in terms of likes/dislikes/clothing/music/accepted behaviours et cetera, I would have succeeded. I was raised among relatives who were fairly 'off' and eccentric, and as I said above, I allied myself with people who were 'off' in secondary school, though I don't really aim for non-conformity- it was always very much "this is me, like it or not, I'll do my thing".

I do think that those on the spectrum are less likely to conform for reasons that were given in previous posts above; but to touch upon the interesting phenomenon of subcultures that Rankle already mentioned, a lot of youth culture is based on NOT conforming to the values of the previous generation, and make something of their own. And those subcultures are mostly built by non-autistics. (I wouldn't go as far as saying that all non-conformity is a type of reverse conformity, however..)