This article is the sequel to the previous piece, “What Are ‘Mild’ Intellectual Disability and ‘Borderline’ Intelligence?” If you have not yet read it, please start there.
In the previous article, we covered what mild intellectual disability and borderline intelligence are — the definitions, and why they are so hard to see. In this article, we walk through the “surprising things” that become difficult when intelligence is constrained.
The “Surprising Difficulties”
① The Inability to Read Another Person’s Feelings
The capacity to read another person’s emotions develops slowly through the picture books of early childhood and the small frictions with friends. After repeating the experience of “if I say that, it will hurt the other person,” the brain begins to form a circuit that simulates, in advance, how words will land. By adulthood, most people do this without thinking about it.
But when intelligence is constrained, the function of running that “if I say this, how will the other person feel” simulation in advance is weak. Take a scene at a class reunion.
A scene at a class reunion:
Classmate B: “Actually, I changed jobs and started something new. The pay went down a bit, but it’s something I’d wanted to try for a long time. There’s still a lot I don’t know, but I’m working at it.”
Classmate A: “What — you changed jobs? The pay went down? What kind of conditions does the new job have? Is that going to work out for you? What a waste. I think quitting was a mistake.”
Classmate B: (I shouldn’t have brought it up…)
B had wanted A to receive his job change as the “new challenge” he had summoned the courage to make. But A judged it inside the frame “changing jobs = failure,” and could not pick up what B was actually feeling — most likely a wish to be cheered on. Without reading what B was feeling, or what B was hoping for, A returned a tactless reply that landed completely wrong. This is a problem of reading emotion.
Emotion is not the only piece. There is another difficulty: when the other person says something, those words do not register as “something that should correct me.”
② One-Way Assertion
The skill of “taking in the other person’s reaction” develops before school age, through pretend play and small disagreements with friends. As children repeatedly experience “what does the other person say back to my position,” a circuit forms for adjusting one’s own words and behavior in response.
When intelligence is constrained, this work of “looking at oneself from the other person’s perspective” does not function well. Even when the other person says something, those words do not register as “something that should change my view,” and the person continues to judge based only on their own logic.
When, in conversation, “what the other person says fails to register as material for revising my own thinking,” that is “one-way assertion.”
A scene with a neighbor:
Neighbor A had been leaving belongings in Neighbor B’s parking space without asking. B noticed and spoke up.
Neighbor B: “Excuse me — this is my parking space, so could you not leave things here?”
Neighbor A: “What — it’s empty on weekdays anyway, isn’t it. It’s not in the way.”
Neighbor B: “It’s not a question of whether it’s in the way. The problem is that it’s being used without permission.”
Neighbor A: “I’m not breaking anything, and it’s only for a short while.”
Neighbor B: “That’s not the point — that’s what I’m telling you.”
What B wants to convey is “the discomfort of having my own property used without my consent.” But for A, that does not get through. A keeps thinking only inside her own criteria — “is it in the way?” “did I break anything?” — so B’s words do not function as material for re-examining her behavior. Whatever B says, A’s reply doesn’t take it in, and the response stays one-way. B feels as though her arguments are passing right through A. A, meanwhile, does not notice that the conversation isn’t matching up. From A’s side, she is “responding properly.”
③ Double Standards
A sense of fairness — that “the same standard applies to me as to others” — is sharpened in the group life of school. The friend who broke a rule is criticized; if I then do the same thing, I get scolded too. As experiences like that pile up, the sense of “I have to use the same yardstick on myself” takes root from within.
But when intelligence is constrained, the person cannot view herself objectively. She demands strict rules of others while applying easy ones to herself — and feels no contradiction in doing so. “If others do it, it’s a problem; if I do it, no problem.” Different yardsticks for self and others — and the contradiction stays invisible to her.
If “② One-way Assertion” was a problem of “what comes in,” this one is a problem of “looking at oneself from outside.”
A scene at work, between a manager and a subordinate:
A scene over a vacation request:
Subordinate B had submitted a vacation request a week earlier.
Subordinate B: “I’d like to take next Friday off…”
Manager A: “Why so suddenly? You’re not planning ahead. Why didn’t you say something earlier?”
Subordinate B: (I did submit it a week in advance… If she’s going to say that, I have no choice but to withdraw it.)
A few days later.
Subordinate B: “About the meeting tomorrow…”
Manager A: “Oh, that meeting — I’m going to skip it. I just decided to take tomorrow off. Handle it for me, would you.”
Subordinate B: (Hold on… you can’t be serious…)
Manager A has no awareness that what she did to Subordinate B and what she is doing now are “contradictory.” She demands “planning ahead” of the subordinate, while she announces a sudden day off the day before. The same action is no problem when she does it, but a problem when someone else does it. Without realizing it, this kind of double standard shows up in her behavior.
If ③ is a problem of “not being able to look at oneself from outside,” ④ is a slightly different angle — the inability to put what is in one’s head into words that reach the other person.
④ The Inability to Explain
The ability to explain things in order builds up through the experience of being asked “why is that?” and through practice with composition and presentations. By thinking about “where the other person is unclear” and “how to say it so they can follow,” that verbal exercise gradually settles in, and explanation eventually becomes natural. Take a scene at work:
Subordinate B: “How should this task be done?”
Manager A: “Don’t make me explain everything. Watch and pick it up.”
Subordinate B: (I have been watching… but where, and how, am I supposed to “pick it up”?)
A few days later, after Subordinate B finished a first pass.
Manager A: “This is all wrong. Normally it wouldn’t come out like this.”
Subordinate B: (That’s exactly why I wanted you to teach me what “normally” means…)
Manager A cannot put into words why this is the way it should be done. She gets by with “you can see it” or “anyone normal would do it that way.” The cognitive work of imagining what the other person doesn’t understand and putting it in order — that is not functioning well.
We have looked at four scenes, but this is not the end. The psychology of being unable to say “I don’t know,” the reasons social norms do not get internalized, the mechanism behind inconsistent memory — the remaining four scenes have even deeper backgrounds.
⑤ The Inability to Say “I Don’t Know”
Being able to identify “where exactly I’m unsure” is a basic prerequisite for learning. Finding the unclear place, putting it into words, asking the question — when this circuit runs, the person can move on to the next step. Saying out loud, “I don’t understand this part — could you explain it?” is necessary in order to advance.
But when intelligence is constrained, the first place this circuit stalls is at “identifying what isn’t clear.” The shape of the question never forms, so the answer comes back as “yes.” On top of that, saying “I don’t know” itself carries a strong sense of inferiority, and the resistance to putting it into words layers on top. Take a scene at a part-time job:
A scene after the explanation of a task:
Worker B: “Did the explanation make sense?”
Worker A: “Uhhh…”
Worker B: “Which part wasn’t clear?”
Worker A: “…”
Worker B: “All right — let me explain it again.”
(Repeats the explanation.) “How about that? Think you can do it?”
Worker A: “Ah, yes.”
The next day, A was doing the work in a completely different way. A could not, from the start, tell what wasn’t clear to her, and there was no felt urgency that “the work won’t progress while I’m still unclear.”
Not being able to grasp what one does not understand — that is why understanding doesn’t advance. This same difficulty branches outward into situations where a person needs to grasp what rules exist in society and follow them.
⑥ The Absence of Common Sense
Society contains both written rules — laws and ordinances — and unwritten ones: manners, common-sense expectations, the basic obligation to keep promises. Although these are not written into any legal text, they are the shared, tacit rules that allow people to live together in society. They begin in preschool, deepen through elementary school, middle school, and so on. Through stages of small failure and reflection, a person gradually internalizes the concepts. By the time someone reaches adulthood, these are generally understood as “social common sense” — the rules needed to live in society — and they show up in how the person behaves.
But when there are cognitive constraints, the person reaches adulthood without ever having internalized many of these rules. The result is everyday trouble of various kinds. Take a manager and subordinate driving to a golf course.
A scene in the car on the way to the course:
Subordinate A is driving on the highway. Another car overtakes them.
Manager B: “Hey, we just got overtaken. That guy is mocking us. Speed up — pass him!”
Subordinate A: “That’s dangerous — I can’t…”
Manager B: “Dangerous, nothing. You’ve got no guts. Come on — speed up! Get past him no matter what!”
Subordinate A: “…”
After the round, on the way back.
A scene at a service-area meal:
At the rest stop on the drive home, Manager B poured beer into a glass and pushed it toward A.
Manager B: “A drink after a round of golf. Have one.”
Subordinate A: “Thank you, but… I’m driving back, so…”
Manager B: “One drink is fine. Go on — drink. I’ll vouch for it.”
Subordinate A: “No — if anything happens, that’s grounds for dismissal.”
Manager B: “You’re really no fun. That’s exactly why you don’t get promoted!”
Subordinate A: (With this person as my boss, I’m going to get pulled into something terrible one day…)
This kind of absence of common sense does not stop at breaking laws. The same thing happens in the territory of moral conduct, where there are no clearly visible rules.
A scene after a secret has leaked:
A: “I told you to keep that absolutely between us, didn’t I? Why did you tell ◯◯?”
B: “Because they asked. I can’t lie.”
A: “Even if they asked… do you understand what ‘keep this between us’ means?”
⑦ Memory and Consistency Cannot Be Maintained
Forgetting what was promised, saying something different today from what was said yesterday — behavior like this tends to look, from the outside, like “irresponsible” or “lacking in good faith.” But the background is a cognitive constraint on the ability to keep past actions in time-order and check the present action against them.
A scene where a promise has been forgotten:
A: “Last week, you said you’d handle this by the end of the month, didn’t you?”
B: “Did I say that?”
A: “You did. The whole team heard it.”
B: “I don’t remember. But I can do it now, can’t I?”
A: (This person is always like this…)
From the outside, it looks like “you can’t trust this person; she breaks promises without batting an eye.” In reality, it is not that “she lied” or “she takes promises lightly.” The memory of having made the promise has simply faded over time. It is not a problem of good faith; it is a constraint on memory.
The “memory and consistency” problem does not show only as forgetting. It also shows up as the inability to keep different versions of oneself, at different moments in time, present at the same time.
A scene over a small loan:
A came to a friend in tears, saying, “I’m really in trouble for money — please help me,” and borrowed 10,000 yen. In that moment, A was genuinely grateful and promised, “I’ll pay you back on payday next month, without fail.”
The next week, however, the friend saw A buying — with a smile — the new game A had wanted.
When the friend snapped, “Shouldn’t you pay me back first?” A blinked, surprised: “What — but I’ve wanted this for ages. Payday is still a way off, and right now, this is what matters most to me.”
The state of “the self who owes money” and “the self who is buying the thing in front of her right now” cannot stay alive in her head at the same time. Past words and present actions don’t connect into a single “line.”
Not being able to hold one’s own past words alongside one’s present actions — this same difficulty also surfaces, in its own shape, when the person is on the receiving end of someone else’s correction.
⑧ When Pointed Out, Becoming the “Victim”
“Being told about a mistake” and “being attacked or made fun of” are, in principle, two different things. This distinction is built up through the experiences of childhood disagreements, when the adults around repeat the message, “your behavior needs to be corrected, but that is not the same as denying who you are as a person.”
When intelligence is constrained, this distinction does not function well. The instant something is pointed out, the experience connects directly to “I’m being mocked, I’m being bullied,” and the person reflexively flips into “the other side is the wrong one; I’m the victim.”
A scene where a mistake is pointed out:
A keeps making the same data-entry mistake at work. Each time, her colleague B says, “This part needs to be corrected like this.”
A then goes, in tears, to the supervisor: “B is always coming down hard on me — only on me. I’m being bullied.”
Inside A’s head, the fact “I made the mistake” (the cause) drops out without being processed. Only the part “B pointed it out to me” (the result, experienced as an unpleasant attack) gets cut out and remains. So inside A’s world, a fully formed picture has taken shape: “I am the victim. I’m being attacked.”
What Was at the Root
Looking at ① through ⑧ side by side, each of them looks, at first glance, like a problem of “personality,” “good faith,” or “upbringing.” “Cannot read the room.” “Has no common sense.” “Cannot be considerate.” “Doesn’t know basic manners.” “Has bad intentions.” “Self-centered.” “Has no sense of responsibility.” “Maybe it’s ADHD.” “Doesn’t remember because they weren’t paying attention.”
But all of these describe “results,” not “causes” or “what is at the root.”
The truth is that being able to do the things in ① through ⑧ requires the brain to perform a number of complex cognitive operations — operations that demand even more advanced functioning than reading, writing, or arithmetic. When intelligence is constrained, the fact that these tasks are difficult is not a flaw — it is a logical consequence.
Once we understand how cognitive constraints shape interpersonal life, the next question becomes how to spot them in support practice. The next article walks through, concretely, how to assess whether a parent’s intelligence is in the typical range.
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