A great example of thinking styles relates to blame.
Autistic people will describe a factual series of events that didn’t happen as intended; it’s not emotional, it’s just evidence-based. It’s simply what happened.
Neurotypical people tend to see this as blame; it is not. Blame is emotional; facts are just things that happened. But because neurotypical people see things through an emotion lens but autistic people don’t, the autists tend to apologise even though they did nothing wrong.
It’s usually regarded as the autistic person being at fault. This is incorrect and leads to significant mental health issues. Neurotypical people don’t realise this as they mostly think people think like them. It is a significant cause of conflict. One EVT aims to resolve.
Left unresolved over time, autistic people can seriously suffer as they are blamed for things they didn’t actually do. This highlights the risks of how seeing things differently but not listening to one another can have serious consequences.
However, it goes well beyond just autistic individuals; difference in general can lead to blame, which leads to stress and anxiety. In these circumstances, people simply can't be creative and create brilliant products. Listening and understanding is the answer.
