Can being judgemental be an AS trait?

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I am VERY judgemental.

I hate myself for it. What can I do to stop?

Get proven wrong and accept it when you're wrong.

I learned to make judgments about actions but to resist making an absolute judgment on the person. Martin Luther King cheated on his wife. That's bad. Does that make his work on civil rights invalid? No.

I don't think so. I think it's just a Superiority Complex in some people. It probably comes with low self-esteem and self-worth. So, if you fix what's wrong in yourself, you naturally stop worrying or being concerned about what's wrong with other people.

Nail on the head probably.

I've been struggling with that myself. Not judging people but assuming that I know which position on an issue is correct and being very frustrated when other, seemingly like-minded people don't agree. (Currently, one of my obsessive issues is politics and social justice and there is someone I know who is also into social justice but she opposes a current school funding initiative. I don't understand why she could take that position.)

I wonder if it is a theory of mind thing or a rigid thinking thing. I tend to see things as they should be and not as they are. I also tend to see people as they could/should be and then am disappointed when they don't live up to my expectations.

The cure all for any problem like this:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYLMTvxOaeE[/youtube]

Seriously though, it's not really much more complicated than that.

Think about what leads up to being judgmental. It's usually preconceived ideas. Start with those. Stop thinking you know so much. I don't mean to imply you think you're a know it all. I grew up with two very judgmental parents, and learned to be the same from them. We all eventually learned almost all our judgmentalism comes from preconceived ideas. From the belief that we already knew things that in reality we did not.

If you can stop that, and walk into every situation as if you know nothing about it, you'll be less likely to judge. There should be very little we are totally convinced is correct. That's not to say we shouldn't stand for anything at all. Not to say we shouldn't be convinced of anything at all. Just that we should probably not be so convinced about as many things as we are. We are, after all, only human.

Yes, that describes me very well too. It's a difficult thing to break out of because judgment is also a good thing, in the sense of being judicious and exercising one's reason, so that suspending one's judgment meas also suspending one's own reasoning. And then what do you have? Blind belief in someone else's judgment? That's not satisfactory at all.

I know I've run into trouble trying to be less judgmental. I've accepted people into my life whom I should have known were toxic, but I was trying not to be judgmental....

Last edited by bee33 on 18 Sep 2010, 5:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

No, but I'm thinking, those with AS will tend to be judgmental differently than average folk.

How is that? Not arguing, just curious.

Why not just enjoy life and have fun and not take life seriously?

That is what I have been trying to do.

The more people are unfairly judged themselves by others the more judgemental they will be of others.

I don't think it's an AS trait. It might be a personality trait. I was talking to a group of people on the spectrum once, and mentioned how I have trouble with critical thinking and how I always take things at their face value, and one of the guys there said "well, you got diagnosed pretty recently, so you'll have more knowledge now to get better at this." So I'm guessing that this inability to infer about something else from something you are presented with is an AS trait. It makes sense in terms of literal thinking; if someone says something that has a double meaning, you will only get the one meaning that is direct and not the one that is not explicitly presented to you. Judging requires thinking about an external, abstract idea while being presented with something concrete, and according to what I've read, that's supposed to be difficult for people with AS. It's certainly difficult and not natural for me, but I've gotten better at it over the years.

Start it! topic

Become opinionated like me.

First begin considering the true value of the self-judgment now driving you to hate yourself: Our hatred toward anyone, including ourselves, never makes anyone, including ourselves, any better. So, it (self-judgment) is worthless -- it has no value at all.

Can and will -- do -- you agree?

I used to be very judgmental. I guess I just looked at things based on my own experience and world-view.

I got "cured" of my judgment when I was in nursing school. Having the opportunity to see all sorts of people deal with all sorts of health concerns was an eye opener. Also, being privileged to hear their stories and their histories gave me insight into the lives, worldviews and choices of others.

Finally, having children and, specifically, a child diagnosed on the autism spectrum has been a life changing thing to quell any judgmental attitudes that might have remained.

I remember walking down the street with another new mum in the years before my son was diagnosed. She stopped in her tracks and had a look of contempt and horror at another family walking by. I wondered what she saw that was so shocking (she was an elementary school teacher and I assumed she saw something important or significant).

She said, "Did you see that?"

"Um" I said, "No. What?"

She continued, "That toddler had a lollipop and it isn't even ten o'clock in the morning."

I couldn't help myself and said, "It is ten o'clock somewhere in the world."

Later, as I am dealing with my son's behaviours, I have used rewards and motivators a great deal. Yep - a motivator could possibly be a lollipop given before ten o'clock in the morning.

I used to wonder why parents couldn't control their kids. Now I realize that the kid might have ADD, autism or any other number of conditions that make their behaviour more challenging.

I guess the more I learn and experience and the more I hear the experiences of others - the less judgmental I get.