Live data from Hacker News

People with autism less likely to succumb to bystander effect, research finds

sciencedaily.com

11–20 of 386 posts

Re: People with autism less likely to succumb to bystander effect, research finds

#11

My wife recently discovered "Young Sheldon", and one of the most egregious goofs so far is the idea that Sheldon would suffer from stage fright. We both agree that stage fright is something probably only suffered by people who care about the opinions of strangers.

I have Asperger‘s, and my stage fright depends on what I’m doing. I’ve been a lead singer and guitarist in quite a few bands and I’ve never had stage fright while playing.

But push me to stand up and talk about something and I will freeze and act like a total spaz.

Re: People with autism less likely to succumb to bystander effect, research finds

#12

My wife recently discovered "Young Sheldon", and one of the most egregious goofs so far is the idea that Sheldon would suffer from stage fright. We both agree that stage fright is something probably only suffered by people who care about the opinions of strangers.

That depends. Us autists tend to get bullied a lot and picked on for anything and everything we do.

Being on a stage means a lot more people see what you do, and what you do wrong, and you'll get a lot more bullying.

And if you're also a perfectionist and feel like you've failed over the tiniest mistakes, this can get even worse.

I — myself autistic — am close to thirty now and I still suffer from extreme social anxiety and stagefright due to the bullying I experienced in school.

Re: People with autism less likely to succumb to bystander effect, research finds

#13
post #7

Anecdotal evidence: around me, several kids are on the autistic spectrum. It's hard to prevent them from intervening when they notice what they feel is an injustice, towards them or others. At some point, this included one of them regularly attempting to rescue babies from baby trolleys, which they considered a prison. Fortunately, the would-be rescuer was only aged 3 at the time.

Hi, I posted this study because I have Asperger’s and this is what was always said about my behavior. Yesterday I literally had to stop myself from sending photographs to the police of a guy walking his dog off leash in a park that has signs forbidding it. And my reason for wanting to call the police is because of my compassion for the dog or for anyone the dog to hurt. Not so much that it was only that the man was d…

It might be important to realise that signs and rules are made up by sign-makers and rule-makers; often to their benefit. Reality doesnt come with a rule about leashing dogs on grass.

It feels like something is going wrong here in your connecting a dog being off a leash with somehow empathy for the dog.

I read your impulse to act here as your mind being hijacked by the sign-maker to conscript you into their preferred system of rules.

Evaluate all signs, rules, commands in just the same way you evaluate the most average sort of person reading these things out in front of you. Who are you? Why? What do you want? and so on

Re: People with autism less likely to succumb to bystander effect, research finds

#14

[flagged]

It's not sociopathy, it's more like 'wtf should I do'.

I passed a weird certification in highschool to learn how to deal with injuries and dangerous situations (car crash, someone passing out in public) and so far it helped twice. Each time the other helpers had the same (or similar) training I did.

However when I met two people fighting each other in public, violently (blood and teeth), I was under a severe bystander effect I thought I wouldn't have (because I had good reactions to dangerous situations in the past).

For me at least, this effect is more about how prepared you are, a sort of default state, not something bad.

Re: People with autism less likely to succumb to bystander effect, research finds

#16
post #7

Anecdotal evidence: around me, several kids are on the autistic spectrum. It's hard to prevent them from intervening when they notice what they feel is an injustice, towards them or others. At some point, this included one of them regularly attempting to rescue babies from baby trolleys, which they considered a prison. Fortunately, the would-be rescuer was only aged 3 at the time.

I don’t think that concern for injustice is something universal or even necessarily widespread among autistic people. That is, I believe that there are plenty of autistic people who do not give a fuck, eschew social causes completely, feel misanthropic, etc. Rather, I think that the examples you encountered represent that segment of autistic people who do care, and due to the difficulty that autistic people have with understanding social roles and social boundaries, they felt a need to act and did so, when normies might not have felt a need or would have held back.

Re: People with autism less likely to succumb to bystander effect, research finds

#17

My wife recently discovered "Young Sheldon", and one of the most egregious goofs so far is the idea that Sheldon would suffer from stage fright. We both agree that stage fright is something probably only suffered by people who care about the opinions of strangers.

thanks all! I stand corrected...

Re: People with autism less likely to succumb to bystander effect, research finds

#19
post #7

Anecdotal evidence: around me, several kids are on the autistic spectrum. It's hard to prevent them from intervening when they notice what they feel is an injustice, towards them or others. At some point, this included one of them regularly attempting to rescue babies from baby trolleys, which they considered a prison. Fortunately, the would-be rescuer was only aged 3 at the time.

Hi, I posted this study because I have Asperger’s and this is what was always said about my behavior. Yesterday I literally had to stop myself from sending photographs to the police of a guy walking his dog off leash in a park that has signs forbidding it. And my reason for wanting to call the police is because of my compassion for the dog or for anyone the dog to hurt. Not so much that it was only that the man was d…

Dogs like being off lead. Running around is sort of their driving motive.

Re: People with autism less likely to succumb to bystander effect, research finds

#20
“With autism”

A large portion of the autistic community is very against this phrasing. Autism is not a disease you carry, or something you “have”.

It should be used as an adjective to describe a person:

“Autistic people less likely to succumb to bystander effect”

Edit: If you follow through to the actual paper referenced you can see they use the correct phrasing.

Post reply on HN