There are a several concepts related to how I think about myself and others where the way I think is quite different from the way NT people think. This is mostly caused by my lack of Theory of Mind, specifically lack of Object Constancy.

Temporal Self-Appraisal

Might be called: Self-Experience, or Sense of Self.

This is a person’s perception of themselves across time. NT people often experience this as Episodic Self-Experience. They view their life as a series of distinct chapters. This might be as simple as Past Self, Current Self and Future Self or there may be additional divisions in Past Self (High School Self, College Self, First Job Self, etc.). Although people understand that logically these are all aspects of the same person, they impose a bit of separation. This might be to distance themselves from past shame or to put off distasteful tasks for Future Self. Something like that – I don’t experience this myself, so this is just my understanding of it.

I experience what is called a Diachronic Self-Experience – I see my past, present and future self as a continuous stream of events. Sure, I might organize them in my memory by where I was or what I was doing, but I was certainly the same person. Mistakes I made in the past might come with feelings of Regret but they are certainly actions I took. Future me is just a projection – I imagine eventually being retired and spending more time on hobbies. Tomorrow’s me is certainly just me, but tomorrow. Whatever I put off today I am doing so because I am lazy or greedy (for whatever I am doing instead).

Self-Concept

Might be called: Sense of Identity.

This concept of yourself ties in with an idea of Identity. Who am I?

For NT people, a massive part of their identity is tied into their social position (Persistent Social Identity). How do other people think of them? How do they fit in to the groups they are in? Where are they in the hierarchy? There is also an idea of Self-Schema – what are you? “I am a parent” or “I am a good cook”.

Although this sense of identity goes hand-in-hand with sense of self, there is also some separation. Identity is maybe more about what other people think you are rather than what you are internally. A person might be timid but has decided that they are going to present as assertive – this becomes their identity. The identity is very important for NT people. It is like their brand. Changes in identity are difficult.

I have no Social Salience so I have no real value of social position, but do understand what it is, at least in a work setting. I do have a Self-Schema: I am a parent and husband. I am a programmer. I like reading. These are not me – I am me. These are just labels and I think they are descriptive and I place some value on them, but they are mutable. This is not my identity.

Person Perception

Might be called: Sense of Others, Object Constancy, Identity Constancy or Social Attribution.

Object Constancy is the psychological term for maintaining a stable, unified mental representation of a person’s identity and your relationship to them, even when they are absent. Identity Constancy is the idea that even under stress, your core identity doesn’t change.

NT people use Theory of Mind and mentalizing to create persistent representations of other people in their mind. Social Salience drives this mechanism and it runs automatically to keep a real-time representation of the person while they are present, and keeps a sort of ghost representation that the NT mind can interact with and even update when they are not present. This is then tied to the public Identity that the person presents. It includes their name, their job, their gender, their hobbies and more.

Changes to the representation of the person are not done lightly. It can be upsetting or a source of dissonance if the mental model doesn’t match reality. In some cases changing identity can feel like the person was deleted or killed and replaced.

My sense of others is much like my sense of self: I think of people as Black Boxes and I think my identity may be similar. Each person is a unique individual. They each have metadata associated with them: name, job, gender, likes, dislikes and more. Changes in how people present themselves just require an update to the labels, nothing more. Sure, it might take some getting used to, but I don’t own their identity. I see the person themself as being constant, not the attributes used to describe them (Identity Constancy means little to me).

I see myself the same way as I noted in Identity: I am me. The labels may change over time, but I am the same person. The one difference between how I see myself and how I see others is the amount of detail: I have a lot more ability to introspect. I am the only one where I can know the inner state.