Countless times when I was a kid (and sometimes now) people thought I lied when I was innocent because of timidity (and not diagnosed but maybe on the spectrum), so yeah I was unsettled. Uncontrollable smiles were the worst ("that makes you laugh!"). I can’t blame neurotypical people for having heuristics, but I’m still afraid to be interrogated in something serious with my reactions analyzed.
The article shows neurotypical people should have the same concerns. Interogators who think they know how to spot lying are usually wrong, regardless of whether they are interviewing neurotypical people or people on the spectrum.
I'm not on the spectrum, but I was a rebellious kid who didn't like to take shit from teachers. My defiant and sarcastic reactions to accusations were often considered evidence that I'd done wrong when I was innocent.
It's not that lie-spotting heuristics work better for neurotypical people or worse for people on the spectrum. They don't work at all for anyone. We're all in the same boat.
"My defiant and sarcastic reactions to accusations were often considered evidence that I'd done wrong when I was innocent."
You were rebellious. From the point of view of a common teacher, that means you are not innocent. There is actually a old common saying, when some kid got a beaten, but it later turned out to be not guilty of that ... "well, he deserved it anyway" or "well, then the beating was in advance for something he is about to do" "or some other hidden sin", instead of a apology.
Which means self fulfilling prophecy. Punishing someome for something they didn't do - and for sure there will be reasons later on for things they will have done.
There are still way too many teachers and alike, who think a childs free spirit needs to be broken first, before they can learn something useful.
Having been through army basic training, I can confirm this is not an attitude unique to school teachers. To be fair, discipline and self control is incredibly valuable even if it’s not the be all and end all.
It's more like people wanting to be done with it using any excuse. I don't think jobsworths would particularly care who did what, they wanted things to go away. They were probably paid so little it made no sense to play a detective.
Well to be fair, you shouldn't accuse someone of something they aren't, or something they didn't do.
For instance, it'd be incredibly unfair for me to accuse you of being a jackass for a comment like this, when I know nothing about you... it'd also be equally unfair for me to assume you're an authoritarian... because I don't know anything about you, and therefore have no reason to make such an assumption.
I remember being berated for uncontrollably smiling as a fear response. In one sense, it was a good lesson - smiling at people who are angry with you can make them angrier. But it was also a lesson in abject helplessness: interacting with people who have power over you will result in arbitrary, potentially unbounded pain and your best efforts to “play the game” will fail. Internalizing that lesson has done me very little good!
I had a time where a group of bullies picked up the innovation of using the school administration to harass. So I found myself in the situation of having chats with the principal a few times a week.
The optimal strategy was to courteously deny and be silent. It works over half the time. I’d also use my time waiting around to “charm” the support staff by being nice to them and making myself useful. Eventually, most disciplinary referrals ended up getting lost, as the secretaries clued up to what was happening.
My high school was a similar object lesson in how the world actually works. I went from almost getting expelled freshman year for "breaking the library computer"[1] to having the assistant principal accept, but probably not believe, every word I said over underclassmen in any sort of conflict.
Hey I did the same but added SOUND RND (1000,1,-1) or whatever it was to an entire bank of econet computers.
We were in the class next door that had one computer and we could hear it go off.
Hilarious hijinks until caught/blabbed on. Serious business afterwards. Teachers are scared shitless of computers even now and ‘hacking’ back then... well, I was waiting for MI6 to come get me.
My bro has a thyroid condition. So he doesn't blink, holds eye contact. We were cold busted so many times as kids. Often with physical evidence. He always got off.
I was a fairly disruptive kid in school. It was all boyswillbeboys stuf. Drinking and smoking with friends in abandoned sections of the school. The kind of stuff that seems really serious then, and inconsequential now.
I was brought in front of the board for expulsion after a litany of these types of things, and questioned about anything and everything for about two hours.
We took the case to the board of education and got copies of all of the board members notes, one of which enraged me then and now.
Scrawled in the margins of this members notes - random physiological and psychological phrases. "R.E.M?" for rapid eye movement, "no empathy", "slouching" etc.
Some armchair psychologist that thinks a kid in a high pressure situation, looking around at a board of nine people, is displaying sociopathic traits. That somehow my seating posture related to my character.
They expelled me, and it was ultimately overturned by the state. Still bothers me that people try to apply these dogshit cues to make real life major decisions.
"Vindictive" and "spiteful" were some other good ones. They'd convinced themselves I was doing it to get them or something. The truth is, I was a bored unstimulated kid and the only consideration they got, was how I could avoid them as much as possible. Absolutely zero interest in sticking it to them or making their lives more difficult.
This is an extreme case, but not an unusual one. People draw conclusions about people with very little information. They then carry on to believe that their conclusions have real weight, and are based in fact. It's part of why there were always be socially fluid types and con artists.
I know this isn't quite your point, but I can't tell you how many jobs I've not been offered due to missing some trivia question and the interviewer deciding my fate based on that.
I have a lot of anxiety about getting my next job, due to this and other reasons. "But you're well-qualified," my friends will say. Yes, but interviewers are capricious and irrational.
It is pretty shitty of them to write those things about a kid, but they were asked to make a judgement. They weren't using these observations to figure out if you were lying, and when you say they thought you were "out to get them", you're actually playing into the same armchair psychology they were.
I don't mean to give you grief because I've been in similar situations. But I hope you've learned from it that people will hold you responsible for behaviors they observe, and not for your intentions behind them (e.g. acting sullen because you are actually terrified inside).
They were assessing character and yes, making a judgement on it, which was their role. I find it likely that OPs behavior came off as seeming vindictive and spiteful, even if not intended that way. They would have done better to observe specific behaviors (which they did fairly with "slouching"), but their intent was likely to judge character and fit for the school, based on the evidence in front of them.
Not saying it's easy, especially for a kid, but if you go in front of a panel like that, if you can demonstrate remorse and desire to change, it goes a long way.
> if you can demonstrate remorse and desire to change, it goes a long way
It sounds like you're presuming to know more about what happened there than you can. I fully expressed remorse, and explained how in hindsight I understand that what I was doing was disruptive, and that I wouldn't behave that way in the future, etc.
Their rubbish analysis was just that. Also, how is "slouching" a fair thing to observe in analysis? I sit with bad posture. I did then and I do now. It's completely irrelevant.
Oh, I should also point out that by this point I had been clinically diagnosed with ADD - which they expressed, and I'll have to paraphrase as it was about 13-14 years ago, was "made up" and that it couldn't possibly explain my behaviour.
Yeah, I wasn't there and don't presume to know what actually happened. This will come off the wrong way, but I don't know another way to say it so... Feedback is a gift. Even if it's wrong, it is based on some kind of truth in someone's perception. Sometimes it's truly worthless, but I believe there's always something to learn from our fellow humans, even if they express their message in an utterly disgusting way.
Not saying it's easy, especially for a kid, but if you go in front of a panel like that, if you can demonstrate remorse and desire to change, it goes a long way.
This only furthers the advantage of those most willing and able to lie. Especially so when the system and punishment is arbitrary and capricious rather than rooted in first principles. We should focus on outcomes and shared goals, not easily faked attitudes.
Why do you assume it's a lie? I'd say it's at worst uncorrelated to the truth. And, apart from whether you mean it or not, I believe there's value in learning how to tell people that you do. It's up to you then to decide whether you want to use that power to lie.
I have the same issue! When anyone asks me about something I haven't done (or should have done and did), I feel like they won't believe me anyway and go into a over-defensive/explanatory mode, basically acting like a culprit.
I wonder if there's a way to change how one thinks, to not assume that the other person won't trust what one says, and so avoid getting nervous / acting like a culprit
I wonder if thinking "I get paid anyway the same each month, what does it matter if they believe me or not" helps (unless one might get fired)
Funny you mention this, Freud wrote a whole essay about how people how people who suffer neurotic disorders are in serious risk of being convincingly misinterpreted when being drilled under pressure in legal settings, and that legal officials need to rethink what they think true speech is, as a neurotic will indict themselves even if they're innocent
