Last updated on November 26, 2023
Autistics struggle because most people have more social skills and extroverts with social skills lead most communities.
By the age of six, teachers can accurately predict which students will be successful. That’s true in various nations, on several continents.
Research has found, time and again, that the mastery of cultural norms in any community leads to success in that community, regardless of the social, political, or economic model of the community. Sadly, those cultural norms often include biases that further reduce opportunities. It’s not enough to be socially skilled if you are from a marginalized segment in a larger community. Acknowledging that reality, however, poor social skills remain a leading predictor of success.
Studies on all the populated continents have found social skills necessary to at least superficially emulate desired compliance with norms at a young age correlates significantly with rising to positions of influence. This also proved true in organizations, from churches to governments. Of course, corporations also have cultures, but it is a mistake based on research to declare any system to blame for this human preference for likeminded and group oriented leaders.
Autistics in the West often decry our capitalist systems, but the truth is that the dominance of social skills is that human norm.
In Confucian-influenced China, compliance with tradition leads to social capital. The more you exhibit knowledge of The Analects and demonstrate adherence to them, the more likely you are to be given leadership roles in school, in a community, and at work.
In oral cultures, the ability to tell stories well gains respect. A leader is expected to know the traditional stories and be able to connect the present to that past.
Living in a capitalist economy, earnings are only one way to measure power and success. Surely a political leader has success, too. Of course, politicians excel at… social skills. No matter which form of success you seek, social capital or financial capital, social skills correlate to an individual’s standing.
I came across this article in Inc. over the weekend, a reminder that social skills predicting success are identifiable by age five or six.
Want to Raise Successful Kids? Science Says These 7 Habits Lead to Great Outcomes
It’s not just one study. It’s study after study after study.
Inc. Magazine; April 24, 2021
By Bill Murphy Jr.Pay attention to their social abilities.
You’re probably going to do this anyway, if you can, but a fascinating study published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics correlated the degree to which kindergarteners were qualifiably rated as “prosocial” with their financial success 30 years later.
Kindergarten teachers in Montreal [Canada] were asked to track their students in areas like, inattention, hyperactivity, oppositional behavior, physical aggression, and finally prosociality.
This was Canada, not the United States, and so the researchers were able to get access to the students’ tax returns 30 years later, for scientific purposes. The result?
Those who were rated highest for prosociality as kindergartners made an average of $12,000 a year more than those who had been rated low, three decades earlier.
Children who had Neurodiverse traits were apparently doomed from an early age. This is a longer explanation of how teachers sorted students in the Canadian study.
The ‘Social Behavior Questionnaire’
The boys who paid better attention in school and showed other similar behaviors as young children wound up making much more money down the road. That leads to some key suggestions for both parents and schools on how to react to young children.Using a set of behavior ratings (“the well-validated Social Behavior Questionnaire”), the kindergarten teachers in the program assessed the boys in four negative areas, and one positive one:
- Inattention (“poor concentration, distracted, head in the clouds, and lack of persistence”)
- Hyperactivity (those who were assessed as “agitated/fidgety and moves constantly”)
- Opposition (“disobeys, does not share materials, blames others, inconsiderate, and irritable”)
- Physical aggression (“fights with other children, bullies/intimidates other children, and kicks/bites”)
- Prosociality, which included things like “helping, sharing, and cooperating,” and whether they were the type of children who would “[try] to stop quarrels or disputes, … invite bystanders to join in a game, and … try to help someone who has been hurt.”
They kept assessing the boys “yearly until age 17, then less regularly afterwards,” the study’s lead author, Richard Tremblay, told me in an email.
Their JAMA Pediatrics paper, however, focused on one specific correlation: the kindergarten data collection, and their tax return information three decades later, as grown men.
A clear correlation
Here’s the one-sentence takeaway: Children who were rated by their teachers as more “prosocial,” and had fewer assessments of inattention, hyperactivity, opposition and physical aggression, made significantly more money three decades later.
On average: $12,000 more. As you might expect, it’s a bell curve; the children rated highest by kindergarten teachers (more positive assessments) wound up making as much as $17,000 more per year than the ones in the lowest quarter. In fact, the highest paid 36-year-old from the class was making just over $142,000 a year at the time of the income assessment–while there was at least one at the other end of the spectrum, who had literally zero income.
Autistics have a lot of traits deemed undesirable in the above assessment instrument. Here’s my checklist of why we’re penalized by teachers, supervisors, and our peers.
- Inattention: We appear inattentive even when we are listening. That’s why parents and therapists demand we learn to make eye contact in the United States, learn to lean towards speakers in some Asian cultures, and so on. We’re not comfortable in the “active listening” physical positions demanded of us.
- Hyperactivity: We fidget (stim) a lot. I don’t know any autistic who sits still for hours, especially in classrooms or office meetings.
- Opposition: We dare to say some rules don’t make sense. We ask questions, and that’s perceived as questioning authority, opposing the people in power.
- Physical aggression: We struggle with vocal tone, presence, and body language. We’re called “intimidating” and “intense.”
We could swap one nation for another, one culture for another, and our autistic traits still lead us to be outsiders. We aren’t going to master cultural norms that require intellectual, physical, and emotional signaling.
As I review this list of markers for success or failure, I appreciate why online settings equalize education and workplaces for autistics. We can be ourselves and still participate in some online settings. Sadly, that’s just another way of hiding who we are to avoid being judged. Rejection in person is why many autistics would love to work remotely.
Social skills deficits are a disability because most people focus on “likability” when choosing friends and coworkers.
Being a parent, I care a lot about helping my daughters learn some social skills and signals. They struggle more than I did, and that concerns me. Their teachers have not and will not understand. Even the best trained teachers still have unconscious responses to autistic traits.
Studies like this help explain why we struggle. Maybe we can do something with that knowledge.