If you have some cluster of traits that don't hurt you, then imho they're just traits, not a disorder.
I have no idea, but there are some sterotypes that they are below average. Would be interesting to see studies on that.
But you probably wanted something more conclusive.
- that graph cuts off at a pretty low annual salary (200k). That's certainly a comfortable lifestyle, but that's still within the realm of what normal people on the high end of a good job make. Maybe the happiness cut off is further into the aristocracy
- even if the increase in happiness is logrithmic in the amount of money, and that contunues. Logs grow slowly, maybe at some point it effectively doesn't matter.
Rich people still get happy when they make money, and sad when they lose it.
It's kind of crazy to think otherwise.
Software folks are really good about not getting divorced. And they have money, so they could if they wanted to.
Even more relevant is that some things could be cliff disorders, where it is actually beneficial till it actually falls over some point.
Like Icarus flying, but takes him too close to the sun.
Being obsessive about details making things or being paranoid about what you eat are probably great things to start with, but overrides its own utility at some point.
The cliff question would seem to be a very personal question. Where does that cliff exist? What traits create a cliff? ( not really looking for answer )
I have two autists in my house. For them autism has created some substantial struggles when dealing with the world in general. However, their ( what I call super powers ) have allowed them great success in their given fields ( cs and research ).
Both see the world substantially different than their mom and I do. Their view is often, simple and more forgiving.
Autists have and continue to make great contributions to the neural typical world. My hope is that we are not on a road to eliminate these individuals from our world.[0]
[0]https://www.appliedbehavioranalysisprograms.com/historys-30-...
For example, there’s fastidious, which is a great to have in at least some members of a team, or to be able to draw on as a skill or trait for oneself; and then there’s the same taken to an extreme which manifests as disorders such as OCD, hoarding, etc.
However, the boundary between BAP and ASD is not fixed. Different clinicians draw the line at different places, and it is moving over time. And which side of the line one ends up on can be determined by external life experiences. A person with BAP who lives a life full of luck and supportive environments may never be disabled by their traits to the extent that an ASD diagnosis is warranted. Give the same person worse luck and a more adverse environment, and the same traits may become much more disabling, and they may end up with an ASD diagnosis as a result. So, fundamentally the same person, whether they had ASD was determined not by who they are but by what their environment is.
This is part of what annoys me about some of these popular lines that "autistic people" and "neurotypical people" are "wired differently". Are people with BAP "neurotypical" or not? And sometimes the label is determined, not by one's "wiring", but by stuff going on in the world outside one's head, by society and culture and family and friends and fate and fortune.
It doesn't appear that the op made this claim.
I think I understand your perspective. I think there are some ASD associated traits which may result in sort of a tradeoff for some STEM workers. E.g someone who has a difficulty forming interpersonal relationships (negative) may thus have more free time to pursue academics and outperform their more social peers (positive). This seems more like what the op was talking about being able to observe.
Autism Quotient (AQ) scores are generally accepted as a measure of Broad Autism Phenotype (BAP), which is subclinical ASD. That study produces the (entirely expected) conclusion that BAP is more common in men than women, and more common in STEM occupations than non-STEM occupations.
I'm not aware of any studies linking software engineering specifically to BAP, as opposed to STEM occupations in general. I think the evidence on that point is (thus far) based on anecdote and clinical experience.