MCAT Psychological, Social, and Biological Foundations of Behavior: Passage 10 — Flashcards

Use the following passage to answer questions:

Social thinking is what we do when we interact with people: we think about them. And how we think about people affects how we behave, which in turn affects how others respond to us, which in turn affects our own emotions. Whether we are with friends, sending an e-mail, in a classroom, or at the grocery store, we take in the thoughts, emotions, and intentions of the people we are interacting with.
Most of us develop our communications sense from birth onward, steadily observing and acquiring social information and learning how to respond to people. Because social thinking is an intuitive process, we usually take it for granted.
But for many individuals, this process is anything but natural. And this often has nothing to do with conventional measures of intelligence. In fact, many people score high on IQ and standardized tests yet do not intuitively learn the nuances of social communication and interaction.
While these challenges are commonly experienced by individuals with autism spectrum disorders (high functioning), social communication disorder, Asperger's, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), nonverbal learning disability (NLD), and similar diagnoses, children and adults experiencing social learning difficulties often have received no diagnosis.
A treatment framework and curriculum developed by Michelle Garcia Winner targets improving individual social thinking abilities, regardless of diagnostic label. Professionals and parents alike are using these methods to build social thinking and related skills in students and adults. Social thinking books, workshops, and trainings by Winner or based on Winner's work now offer a range of strategies that address individual strengths and weaknesses in processing social information.
Research is beginning to support the effectiveness of teaching social thinking. The Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders published a report on methodologies specifically addressing weaknesses in the social thinking process, finding that they are successful at teaching the ability to interact socially in people with social limitations who have near-average to very high intelligence.