The Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships

Radu D. Nedescu

Overview of text:
Temple Grandin
• She learns social interaction through direct experience, looking at clues like a scientist
(30-4)
• She thinks in pictures and puts it all into categories. Google images memory=she cannot
use a ‘concept’ if she does not have an image seen by her to attach to it (104-105)
• She thinks associative, not a linear process, but still a rigorous analytical thinking. She
has no emotion when recalling a memory. She still has emotions but is more rational
than other people (34-35)
• She has a simple emotional makeup: happy, sad, scared, angry (34)

Sean Barron
• Sean: Rules, Repetition (controlling the environmentàsecurity), Rigidity. Sean has a
tunnel vision; this helps him avoid the fear he feels towards reality (85)
• Sean has an emotional thinking—controlled through repetition=being sure that always
same causeàsame effect (85-68)

ASD Specific Way of Thinking

• Specific to General—ASD thinking. General to Specific—NT thinking. NT
(neurotypical people) have an apperception of categories, they just know the concept
‘dog’. The ASD people needs to need to look at the details (nose, tail, etc) to complete
the concept (96-97)
• Three types of thinking: visual, pattern (math/music), verbal. One with ASD can be
more inclined one than the others. Often, they try to fit everything in their type of
thinking. However, this does not work, social interactions cannot be reduced to
mathematical patterns (102)

The Key for Social Relationships

• Ingredients for social interaction for ASD people—walking in another shoes; self-
esteem, flexibility (thinks can change), motivation (use the interests of an ASD person
to motivate him/her for more) (114-116)

My conclusion: Phenomenological reduction+ epoche=looking from the autistic

perspective. Adapt social interaction advice based on this phenomenological data.
Questions:
1.What are the subtle (phenomenological) differences in how an ASD person experiences the
world, compared to neurotypicals?
2.How does the idiosyncratic treats of ASD affect one's ability to learn the unwritten rules of
social interaction?
3.How would you enhance 'putting yourself in the shoes of an ASD person? (If you have ASD,
the reverse applies)

My answers:
1.The phenomenological differences are in their lack of apperception of categories, we need to
build up from details that category. The remembering faculty can have no emotions (This is
not the case with me). We have a tendency towards black and white thinking. We learn about
social interactions from direct experience, not observation. The subtle phenomenological
differences are a. the systematic thinking—small little details carefully put to form a whole,
the need for order, a small difficulty in controlling the impulse to finish p/satisfy my desires.

2.The lack of mentalizing (perspective taking), the specific-to-general thinking lead to

difficulties in social interactions. Most social interactions are general situations, they are about
saying what is appropriate to the context. Context here means: what was said, wants and
preferences of others, where and when it happens, the social statute of that others etc. Black
and white thinking can lead sometimes to lack of metaphorical thinking or making jokes and
creating half-true stories for fun.

3. Now, I will need to put myself in the shoes of a NT… I go into a bar, I look at two girls
talking about their expectations for 2021. I immediately understand the context, one of the girls
feels discouraged and needs to be cheered up. Without thinking, I say a joke. My brain
processes her slight smile and eye-fixation on me automatically, ‘I just know that she liked my
joke’. The other girl slightly moved her body a bit away from me, this just tells my brain that
she does want me around for too long (I do not consciously think of these). I feel the social
climate by sniffing the air. The conversation lasts longer than expected… I adapt to the rapid
change in topics with ease, it is natural to swim in between concepts, feelings and intuitions.
The ASD person would feel the need to make points clear, to have straight paths. This is an
‘autistic’ way of thinking of NT. I was not conscious that I am conscious of these body
language elements. I think that an NT is not even conscious in the first place of doing these.
As an ASD person, I learned to ‘feel the context’ and ‘say what is appropriate’. Now I
do it spontaneously, but I do not know if automatically.