I agree that overstimulation causes autistics to prefer solitude but saying autism is "just an "augmented" version of introversion" ignores all of the extroverted people with autism.
More importantly, why do autistic people find gatherings of people overstimulating? I preferred solitude my entire life until last year because of it but after treating my anxiety and correcting negative misunderstandings I had about most people using self-help books on CBT, I now find being around people much more enjoyable and no longer get overstimulated by it much of the time. In my case, the stress caused by not understanding people very well made me less able to handle the stimulation. I also found out after using CBT that I have a mast cell disorder (which researchers believe is more common in people with autism) that causes me to get overstimulated when my mast cells are triggered by things such as stress, pollen, milk, and high histamine foods.
I realize that but those with social anxiety are less comfortable in social situations. Personality tests I took before I overcame my social anxiety said I was very introverted but now they say I'm extroverted.
Just because a person is not well "socialised " does not make him or her an introvert. Also being a socialite is not about being an extrovert. You can be better connected introvert than many extroverts. Furthermore people with huge emotional show, namely histrionics, tend to actually overrate their own circles. People with huge drive that change or move the world might be more like workhorses than social most of the time and they just put up hell of a show in meetings but overall they tend to be extroverts as well.
Introversion is different from social anxiety or shyness in that introverted people
want social interaction
less than extroverted do, which is related to
comfort, they function better when not working in groups, and they focus more on their internal world rather than the external world, but, on the other hand, shyness is
fear. A shy person with social anxiety wants to socialize, attend parties, and work in groups, but their fear, mostly because if past experiences, is what makes them prefer solitude. It is not possible for someone to be an introverted and then become an extrovert. There is a difference between what we show on the outside, which is more reliably predicted by the beliefs, traditions and the ideal of the community that you are member of, and what we are more comfortable with. Our feelings are related to our brains' responses to parties, for example. A more convincing explanation for you having been described as both, an extrovert and an introvert, is that the test was not accurate, or that you could not take your mask off while being tested in either of the two tests.
Although introverts' brains are highly reactive, they don't show it externally. They are more likely to speak in a monotone than an extrovert. Extroverts are the ones that are more likely to be histrionics.
This is a fascinating discussion. Just as there are introverts who are not autistic, there are autistic people who are not introverts. In my case I am highly introverted with mild social anxiety and high functioning autism. I have pondered these questions many times myself.
I am a extroverted Aspie and my well being is connected to being with and connected to people, this has been a regular ? on this forum the anxiety and depression has been 'getting it wrong' so saying the wrong thing, masking so hard and long to maintain interaction leading to 'melt downs' and overthinking every fine detail of percieved rejections on a loop, my solution is to be social only with tried and tested people on a one to one or groups of less than 4 the exception is a place to go dancing as i love it, typically i'm the first on the floor as unlike lots of people i don't feel uncomfortable being out there alone, more space!!!!!
I disagree that introverts are more sympathetic than extroverts i have worked in care most of my life and have a bucket full and have a ability to see the people i support as who they are and have always tried to accept who they are and facilitate what i think they need.
I do believe that there might be some exceptions, that there might be extroverted autistics, but you seem to be an introvert to me. That's because you prefer one-on-one, deep and meaningful conversations. Being an introvert does not mean that the person is isolated in their house. Introversion is about comfort and how brains respond to socialization, and not about how people behave. I think that the
true personality type would be more accurately assessed in children, because they are still discovering the social norm; they behave more naturally than us adults.
It's difficult to study children and come up with theories. There are so many questions to consider. What was their home life like? Were they isolated or not? Are their parents gregarious or not? Have the children been raised by others rather than the parents? Nannies? Grandparents? Have the children travelled? Had they been exposed to different kinds of stimuli beforehand? What strata of society do they come from? What sorts of schools did they attend before the tests?
I'm thinking in terms of a study like this testing myself and a younger sister at a young age. Both of us are autistic, yet as a young child I was far more extroverted and my sister quite introverted. Yet we had the same upbringing. Now, I'm far more introverted and my sister more extroverted in many ways.
It is difficult, but the experiment I mentioned is well-known, so I assume those factors were taken care of? But, being sociable and described as an extrovert
by the public is not accurate as to whether someone is actually an extrovert or an introvert. In a community that, not only encourages extroversion, but also sometimes bullies introverts, it is easy to understand why many people are born as introverts, but "become" extroverts (as described by the public). But being sociable is not what determines where someone stands on the extroversion-introversion spectrum. The definition of introversion is more about how people
feel rather than how they
behave.
Many people like to attribute everything to genetics and brain chemistry but the science just doesn't support it. There are genetic and brain differences for almost everything (such as lung cancer, depression, anxiety, autism) but genetics usually just predispose people or make it more likely they'll develop a certain condition but don't actually cause it.
While a genetic test at birth could probably predict who will become introverted or extroverted with a high degree of accuracy, some people with genes that predispose them to becoming extroverted end up introverted because of neglect, anxiety, depression, and other environmental factors.
It is true that genes only increase the chance of having a character (although, rarely that's not the case [100% penetration]). The more accepted understanding is that developing a character depends on the interaction between genes and the environment. That being said, I don't think that emotional traumas can make someone introverted or extroverted (which implies that the brain structure is altered). (Although, I like to be open-minded and not say or think that something is impossible to happen, but I am sure that, if it ever happened, it was rare.) Introversion is related to the brain structure—that is, after genes have already been expressed. And, as you know, brain cells are not renewable. That's why introversion is not reliably assessed by asking people about how they behave, but rather about how they feel on the inside, and about their performances in groups vs. alone, two aspects that cannot be altered (unlike behaviors).
