People with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) tend to be more neurotic and less extraverted, pleasant, conscientious and open to experience than those without ASD. These personality differences have been observed in children, adolescents and adults, as well as in reports from parents and caregivers.
Autistic
traits can help people gain and maintain power, and have likely done so throughout history. This suggests that powerful people may have more autistic traits than the general population.Powerful people and those with many autistic traits often prefer solitary activities and are often distant. They may also be rigid and socially insensitive, have little empathy and low scores on the trait of kindness, and usually do not have many friends. Both groups are also more self-centered than the others, more honest, less submissive, more sensitive to slights and have a stronger tendency to engage in abstract thinking. They tend to behave bossy or domineering, and their moral judgment is based more on rules than feelings. Experimental evidence suggests that powerful people may have more autistic traits than the general population.
Biographies of presidents, prime ministers and other powerful people often show that they had traits similar to those associated with autism. In animals, leaders are often rigid and insensitive to the needs and feelings of group members, acting in the way that they themselves lean. Problem solving is important in leadership, and people with many autistic traits often seem to think better than typical subjects with similar IQ. The effects of testosterone on the central nervous system may be a common cause of both power and autistic traits. Additionally, powerful men are more successful in reproductive life than others.
This could lead to an increase in the prevalence of autistic traits. Family associations of intense concerns are an empirical factor in the restricted and repetitive domain of autism behaviors and interests. Differential diagnosis, comorbidities, and overlaps with other psychiatric disorders are common among adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but clinical evaluations often miss screening for personality disorders (PD), which are especially common in people with high ASD operation where there is less need for support. Neuroticism was positively correlated with the severity of autism symptoms, while extraversion, openness to experience, kindness, and awareness were negatively correlated with the severity of autism symptoms. People with autism are often exceptionally creative. Scores of ASD patients on the NEO-PI-R modesty and compliance subscales were comparable to those of non-clinical control subjects. The relationships between autism, power and fear have some intriguing aspects.
Personality correlates with the broader autism phenotype as assessed by the autism spectrum quotient (AQ). Too much empathy with those who would suffer and die in a war could make it difficult to make a decision that ultimately helps rid the world of Nazism. In the poem “Yes —” from which the line is taken, Kipling describes an ideal man that evokes hypermasculinity as described by Asperger (194) and Baron-Cohen (200) as the essence of autism. Understanding how autism affects a person's life can help both parties improve their interactions and communication. People with autism who are not diagnosed in childhood may have a high level of stress trying to find a lifestyle to survive in a world that is difficult to understand; therefore, developing their personality with this level of chronic stress could be a trigger to create a PD. Since autism is much more prevalent among men but not limited to that sex, it is not surprising that several researchers have focused on androgenic hormones, particularly testosterone as possible causative factors. In the US it is estimated that one boy in 42 and one girl in 189 have autism spectrum disorder (Baio, 201), so the subclinical group could be quite substantial. While traits and symptoms may differ from one person with autism to another, there are some general characteristics that tend to apply.
PubMed searches were performed using the keywords “Asperger's Syndrome”, “Autism”, “Personality”, “Personality Disorder” and “Comorbidity” to identify relevant articles published in English.
