I don't think non-autistic people have "better theory of mind" than autistic people do.
I think (and some studies have shown) that non-autistic people are simply absurdly confident in their assumptions of other people.
The more confident they are, often the more wrong they are.
"In another study, people were ready to decide whether an unfamiliar face should be trusted after looking at it for just 200 milliseconds. Even when given a chance to look longer, they rarely changed their mind [6]."
theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
Neurotypical people are bad at reading autistic people's facial expressions -
theconversation.com/research-on-fa…
This is tangential but I found this study about "understanding good intentions" - and the scenario was someone accidentally putting poison in a drink?!
And of course the research concluded autistic people were bad at understanding social things because...
autistic people were "harsher" on the people who nearly (or did) kill another person!
"People with autism came down harder on the person whose actions caused the harm, while those without autism put more emphasis on the person's good intentions."
WHAT?!
consumer.healthday.com/cognitive-heal…
"..someone intended to put sugar in a friend's coffee, but it turned out to be poison. In another, 2 friends are kayaking in jellyfish-infested ocean waters. 1 friend had just read that the jellyfish were harmless & suggested they go for a swim..then the other was stung & died."
This is what they concluded about autistic people based on this research:
"People with high-functioning autism have difficulty understanding others' intentions, new research shows."
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