Plume

in my experience that is an instilled trait - they asked a question once and were belittled or made to feel stupid for asking it

unfortunately, at least in my experience of schooling, the societal expectation from the professors and the other students is that the student is expected to passively listen and consume knowledge, and therefore asking a question is not only a disruption but an admission that the person asking has failed in their role to passively consume

It can be frustrating when someone asks questions about something that was just explained to them, or something that can be very easily inferred from what was explained - i.e., teacher tells the class "butterflies are insects" and someone wants to ask okay but are blue butterflies insects? how about yellow butterflies? how about...

and when it's a class of 50 people who only get 50 minutes a week to learn the material and they're paying tuition to hear the instructor say yes, green butterflies are also insects, I think that can be a case of asking too many questions (or at least asking them in an inappropriate time/setting) without the questions themselves being offensive.

Is “neurotypicals” a few of his friends? 😅

I agree with what you say here about why it’s important. To me, asking questions demonstrates being engaged and interested

I don't really think it's just neurotypicals who do this, I think it's really anyone who's been made fun of or demeaned for asking a "stupid question" that, in the other person's eyes, they should know the answer to. So it becomes a learned response that in order to avoid being yelled at for not knowing something, you avoid asking "stupid" questions. This is one of the reasons why when I worked in retail I would often reassure new hires that it's fine to ask me questions no matter how silly it felt to ask them, even if they were things they ought to know by now, because I knew how awkward it felt to do so when I was new, and sometimes people just assume you know or ought to know how to do something without actually checking whether or not that's the case

increasingly convinced one of the core parts of autism is just that you're coated in socialization teflon. sure, some things stick if you're motivated enough to study them, but so many of the social pressures don't unless significant amounts of hostile force are applied

my take as a self-considered neurotypical person is that the thought pattern is "I don't want to ask a question because that will lead to me being considered less able than somebody who instantly understands the subject without needing to ask questions."

this is compounded in social settings (e.g. classrooms) where the number of people observing you is much higher, and further compounded if you're already likely to be considered less able at the subject (for discriminatory reasons of race, gender, class, educational attainment, etc.)

this argument breaks down at several points, but it's such a classic example of social anxiety that I have a lot of sympathy for it haha

there's also a factor of "asking dumb questions in a social setting will be seen as annoying by other students" that contributes to less classroom-based questions, though that's not as applicable to individual learning

The other comments about avoiding ridicule match my experiences, but to add to that: The reason why someone might ridicule you for not knowing something is because "society" expects everyone to put in some baseline level of work learning things on their own so as not to "waste time" by having someone else have to explain it to you. Meeting this obligation and knowing things already is a virtue and shows that you are conscientious of other people's time and are committed to the group.

This is, of course, bullshit, for lots of reasons. But it benefits the people who don't get mocked because they can demonstrate their superiority over others, and it provides cover for someone who doesn't care about the health of the group to pretend that they do. This benefit is why individuals perpetuate the practice and it sticks around even though it pretty clearly is detrimental to the health of a group.