As Alison pointed out in the comments on the How to Stay Calm and Not Yell link, using humor as a way to diffuse situations can backfire pretty badly. Its hard to tell when humor is meant in a positive way and when it is hostile to start with, and if you happen to be a kid on the lower end of the social ladder you have to always assume all humor directed at you is hostile -- because a slight joke may be the only warning you have that someone really has it in for you. In other words, for a lot of kids on the spectrum, a false positive (assuming that a joke is hostile when it isnt) is far less dangerous than a false negative (assuming a joke is just a joke). So we tend to lean towards assuming hostility. And yes, this sometimes does cause problems. I have used humor to diffuse tension over a topic when dealing with NTs only to be informed by an autie or aspie who was present that thought I was being mean.
Posted on: Tue, 05 Nov 2013 21:29:06 +0000
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