No I don’t see that with the autistic people I know.
My dad looks down on people who have different political affiliations. He can’t understand them and tells them how stupid and wrong they are. I mean generally he’s right! These are Brexit voting, often racist people. And he isn’t afraid to call them out for being stupid and wrong!
Stepson acts like he is superior - he likes nothing more than sneering at others and openly ridiculing them, but this obviously comes from a place of very low self esteem.
DP doesn’t think he’s superior but he likes people to know how “senior” he is at work. Will always mention his seniority and drop it into as many conversations as possible. Again I think that comes from knowing he’s not as clever as some other people.
My SIL definitely doesn’t look down on people. Suffers from low self esteem. But she ALWAYS thinks she is right. Not so much superior, just right!
Nephew acts superior but he’s in his 20s and doesn’t have many friends. I think he generally hangs around with older people who probably are more tolerant than people his age, and perhaps he is trying to sound like them, or what he thinks he needs to sound like to appear like them.
Colleague at work (who I have really struggled with over the years and for whom the penny just dropped the other week. Of course!!!! He is so obviously autistic. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before). He again likes to sound superior, certainly over me (he is junior to me in the team) but tries to trip me up, openly laughs at things I say, will just get up and walk out of a meeting when I’m in the middle of talking. And if you’d have asked me two weeks ago I would have said certainly he thinks he is superior to me, to many people! But then it dawned on me. He’s trying to cover up the things he knows he isn’t any good at (admin, using computerised systems, organisation, following instructions). I thought he was just being obstinate and refusing to do as asked despite literally dozens of very clear requests. I thought he was openly sticking his fingers up at me and making my job harder on purpose because he obviously dislikes me and sees no value in my work. Suddenly it became clear. He CAN’T do those things. His brain doesn’t work that way. He blames me that there isn’t a system in place, or that it’s not been communicated to him properly. But of course it has been. No one else has a problem doing this stuff. Even people who’ve only been in post for three months! He’s covering up and hoping no one will notice. He uses blame (usually of me) to hide his inadequacies. So although for years I’ve thought he thinks I’m an idiot and he’s so much better than me, I realise I probably intimidate him on some level (not on purpose!) and he doesn’t want me to know he can’t actually do the work I’ve repeatedly asked him to do. So like with my stepson, he appears superior and seems to like putting others down but the truth is far from that. (Though I do still think he thinks I am an idiot! lol!)
There must be a lot of shame and self doubt at the root of what, on the surface, looks like superiority. At least with the many autistic people that I come into regular contact with.