Joe and the Mega-Sized Smoothie: Language and Asperger's

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The participants in this study http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/blog/a ... -aspergers are presented with two cases:

1) The Free-Cup Case. Joe is very thirsty so he goes to a smoothie shop and asks for the biggest smoothie they have. The cashiers tells him that's the Mega-Sized Smoothie, but if he buys it he will get it in a special commemorative cup. He says that he doesn't mind about the cup, he just wants the largest smoothie. So he buys the Mega-Sized Smoothie. Did Joe intentionally obtain the commemorative cup?

2) The Extra-Dollar Case. Joe is very thirsty so he goes to a smoothie shop and asks for the biggest smoothie they have. The cashier tells him that's the Mega-Sized Smoothie, but if he wants it he will have to pay an extra dollar. He says that he doesn't care about the extra dollar, he just wants the largest smoothie. So he pays the extra dollar for the Mega-Sized Smoothie. Did Joe intentionally pay the extra dollar?

The majority of people not on the autism spectrum judged that Joe's actions were not intentional in the first case, but intentional in the second case. The majority of Aspies answered that Joe's actions were unintentional in both cases.

My opinion is that in the first case Joe did not intentionally obtain the commemorative cup because he did not want it as such; only because it contained the Mega-Sized Smoothie.

In the second case Joe intentionally paid the extra dollar because he knew that paying money was necessary to buy the Mega-Sized Smoothie.

I'm with the author of the piece. I think that you don't really intend to pay for the smoothie at all (let alone the extra dollar), it's just something that you know you'd have to do in order to actually get the smoothie and not feel bad about it (if you'd steal it, you would feel bad about it). So paying is just a side-effect.

Then again, I've never been good with money so what do I know?

Put in another way: if they offered the smoothie for free, would you pay the money anyway? Of course not, because your intention is to get the smoothie, not pay the money.

I think it was intentional to get the smoothie. He intended to get a large smoothie. He didn't care about the cup, so it was unintentional but he paid the extra dollar with the intent of getting the smoothie, therefore to me the second was intentional. Though my question would be, if he was thirsty, why did he get a smoothie? I usually feel that smoothies don't ease my thirst, water or juice makes more sense as they do ease thirst. Mayhap I'm overthinking this.

^ That's what I was thinking. Something like water would've been best. I thought both the above cases were unintentional.

He also accepted the cup to get the large smoothie (remember, he would otherwise have to go for medium, or something), so by that rationale he also got the cup intentionally. Doesn't sound quite right to me.

When I read how it was worded in this thread, I said unintentional to the first, and intentional to the second.

But then I clicked the link and read it, it was worded differently, and I said unintentional to both. It was left out that the mega sized cups used to be one dollar less, so I would say he unintentionally paid that extra dollar, since it's something he usually buys anyway (inferred). The way it's worded in the thread, "one dollar more" sounded to me like he would be paying a dollar more than the smaller sized cup.

This is very interesting, as IMO it further demonstrates how we perceive language.

Last edited by SabbraCadabra on 05 Apr 2009, 3:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I have no idea why the free cup or the extra dollar have to do with intentional actions.

His intention was to get a smoothie.

Everything else - the free cup, the extra dollar - he didn't intend to do but decided to do because he intended to get a smoothie.

As the problem is worded here, I say that the cup is unintentional, and the extra dollar is intentional.

Clearly, Joe's intention is to get a smoothie.

In the first case, the commemorative cup is extraneous to this intention: Joe wants the smoothie whether or not it comes in a special cup. (If Joe was after the special cup, and needed to buy a smoothie to get it, then I might say the smoothie was unintentional. But that's neither here nor there.) Presumably Joe wants the smoothie in some kind of cup (as opposed to sprayed at him), but what kind of cup he gets is irrelevant to his decision to get the smoothie.

In the second case, the extra dollar is an inherent condition of getting the smoothie. If Joe has any understanding of money, he knows he has to pay the advertised price to get the smoothie. Being informed that the smoothie costs more than he thought, Joe could have chosen not to pay - but he did. He agreed to exchange x + 1 dollars for the smoothie.

Basically, paying an extra dollar requires action on Joe's part, while getting the cup is passive. In the first case, the cashier could just as well have not mentioned the special cup. (I guess Joe could have decided that he didn't want a smoothie if it came in a special cup, but that would be kind of strange.)

*goes and reads the article*

Ah. As I suspected, it's all in how you interpret "intentional". I took it to mean an in-the-moment intentionality, rather than a premeditated intentionality.

I had to read through the entire study before I understood why what happened in the 2nd situation was considered intentional.

sounds like both things were intentional; he decided the was going to do them knowingly before he did them, even if he didn't care much.

I have seen this before. When I read the two scenarios in the study, I said "unintentional" for both. Like someone else said, it seems to me that his intention was merely to get the biggest drink they had. Getting a cup and paying more were just incidental.

I have a hard time seeing how this translates to "aspergers" or "not aspergers". I've never been diagnosed, although I certainly feel like an aspie, at least mildly. But I've never thought of myself as processing language in a particularly unusual way. Maybe I do, who knows?

I don't see much of a difference in the two scenarios, or how he suddenly gets a new intention in one of them, but not the other. I assume, from what I know about marketing, that the commemorative cup is meant to be a desirable thing---even though I personally wouldn't want some tacky, plastic piece of crap cluttering up my cupboard. That's fine; some people like that kind of thing. But assuming the cup is desirable, then, if anything, getting the cup ought to be intentional, rather than paying more money.

In other words, I just can't see how to justify the "non-aspergers" answer.

I said unintentional to the first and intentional to the second because Joe NEEDED to pay the money in the second scenario, therefoere it was something he choose to do with intention to get the smoothie.

In the first scenario, the cup was just a side effect that he wasn't really bothered about. He didn't need to the cup for any reason, it was just part of the deal.

I said "unintentional" for the first, "intentional" for the second, for the same reasons that others have mentioned. That's the only way that makes sense to me.
-OddDuckNash99-

I think it has to do with the Aspie "resistance to change".

Aspies interpreted "intentional" to mean "what Joe intended when he walked into the smoothie shop". NTs interpreted it to mean "what Joe intended after gaining additional information".

To an NT, it's no big deal for Joe to change his mind (his intentions) when he learns that the situation is different from what he anticipated. But Aspies get stuck on what Joe was thinking before he talked to the cashier. They refer back to his original plan/intention, even though they understand that Joe is now facing a different set of circumstances.

So the Aspie response makes sense, in that when Joe entered the store, he wasn't intending to get a special cup or to pay an extra dollar. But the NT response also makes sense, in that Joe's intentions change to accomodate the bonus of getting the cup or the requirement of paying the dollar. (But Joe still doesn't really intend to get the cup, it's just something that happens.)

Does that shed any light, elderwanda?

I still don't understand why he's getting a smoothie . If he's actually thirsty, he should have water or a juice. (I am smiling, attempting humour.)

I think that the second is intentional as he had to pay the extra dollar to get the smoothie as others have said above, but I don't think that my answer in this is because I'm resistant to change (personal viewpoint).