Hair pulling is a displacement behavior that shows frustration. Hand wringing shows deliberation about whom you will end up choosing to hurt, perhaps. Holding your arms and rocking shows anxiety about whether to perform when you doubt your skill and the cost of failure is high.
What are some other compulsive behaviors of neurotypical people that are cognitively interpretable?
And also, isn't it wild that they exist at all? What does wringing your hands have to do with moral deliberation? Nothing, so far as I can tell. It's just part of the universal human gesture lexicon in which compulsive gestures were paired up randomly with compulsive thoughts for their signalling value.
What is the meaning of drumming your fingers or tapping your toes? What does cleaning a table by scratching it with one fingernail mean? What does biting down on the side of your lower lip mean?
Maybe squinting + grimacing + shaking or nodding your head is a technique to self stimulate your ears so that you can reset your phonological loop when you've reached a conclusion and you want to stop thinking about a topic. I think that one's not compulsive enough to call a displacement behavior, but it's still interesting, no?
Beard stroking is a displacement behavior that's culturally associated with deep thinking. It might be more specific than that though? What do you think? I want to talk to someone who can think.
Several people I've known will tap some point on the center-line of their face (chin, lower lip, or nose) when they're approaching a conclusion.
I think drumming your fingers probably shows boredom. And hair twirling shows boredom. Are they different kinds of boredom? Are they? These are answerable questions. Look in yourself and make a guess. And then tell me, and I will say, "Hm, yes, interesting! Maybe.".
Boredom by itself doesn't seem all that compulsive. There are compulsive thoughts associated with the mood of boredom, like looking for something else to do or wondering when something else will happen or wondering when the current thing will stop happening. Probably others. I think drumming your fingers is about waiting, and twirling hair is about something else, but I'm not sure what. Maybe hair twirling shows mild frustration. That makes a little sense on the grounds that the behavior is like a mild version of hair pulling. But when you see it, you think "boredom" first, don't you?
You might say "hair twirling is self-stimulation so you have something to process when you're bored". Fine, sure, yes. But they're all self-stimulation. What's the associated thought? There might not be one. I don't know. Let me know.
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