CONCEPT PAPER (Version 1.0)

Working Title

Socially Guarded Cognition: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of Deliberative Cognitive Processing, Conversational Response Latency, and Their Relationship to Autism Spectrum Disorder and Related Cognitive Styles

Background

Many individuals describe themselves as "overthinkers." While the term is common in everyday language, it lacks a consistent scientific definition. Existing psychological literature explains portions of the phenomenon through constructs such as rumination, repetitive negative thinking, metacognition, perfectionism, executive function, anxiety, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), giftedness, introversion, and Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) traits. However, these frameworks do not fully explain a subset of individuals who demonstrate extensive internal cognitive processing before speaking, without necessarily exhibiting pathological anxiety or meeting diagnostic criteria for existing disorders.

These individuals often report delaying responses while evaluating wording, intent, factual accuracy, social consequences, and contextual meaning. This processing style may result in misunderstandings, social isolation, damaged relationships, and inaccurate judgments of intelligence or interest.

This thesis proposes Socially Guarded Cognition (SGC) as a provisional descriptive framework for studying this pattern.