Chinese College Students’ Knowledge of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Social Distance from Individuals with ASD: The Mediating Role of Negative Stereotypes

Do Autistic People’s Support Needs and Non-Autistic People’s Support for the Neurodiversity Movement Contribute to Heightened Autism Stigma in South Korea vs. the US?

“…Our findings suggest that South Koreans are more likely to expect autistic people with lower support needs to adapt to social norms than people with higher support needs. Given that attribution theory proposes that the perceived responsibility for negative behaviors influences emotional and sympathetic responses, resulting in stigmatization (Weiner, 1993 ) but perceived responsibility was not associated with stigma in a combined sample of college students in Lebanon and the US (Gillespie-Lynch et al, 2021b ) and was associated in China (Lu et al, 2021 ), findings suggest that attribution theory may be more relevant for understanding autism stigma in more culturally tight contexts, like South Korea and China.…”

“…However, existing stigma literature has barely scratched the surface of the autism constellation. Most studies examining “autism stigma” have either asked participants to evaluate a vignette about one autistic individual who exhibits unlabeled (e.g., Nevill & White, 2011 ) or labeled autistic characteristics (Gardiner & Iarocci, 2014 ; O’Connor et al, 2020 ) or to indicate desired social distance from a generic diagnostic label (e.g., “autistic person”; Gillespie-Lynch et al, 2015 ; Lu et al, 2021 ).…”

A systematic review and meta‐analysis of associations between primarily non‐autistic people's characteristics and attitudes toward autistic people

“…Based on these findings, Payne and Wood (2016) emphasized the importance of supplementing factual autism knowledge training with sensitivity training that increases understanding of the controllability of autistic characteristics. Some cross‐cultural studies suggest that attribution theory may be more relevant for understanding stigma toward autistic people in more culturally tight cultures such as China and South Korea (Kim & Gillespie‐Lynch, 2022; Lu et al, 2021). Yet, due to the lack of previous studies that referenced attribution theory as a theoretical motivation or specifically examined factors associated with attribution theory in the autism attitude literature, it is unclear how attribution theory aids the understanding of the association between knowledge and attitudes toward autistic people across cultures.…”

Perceptions of Behaviors Associated with ASD in Others: Knowledge of the Diagnosis Increases Empathy and Improves Perceptions of Warmth and Competence

“…Additionally, further studies could include participants who have an ASD diagnoses themselves to see if they would view the target differently given that they may have the greatest level of understanding for the exhibited behaviors. Previous research has found that those with ASD did not view social robots negatively based upon their perceived social deficits [ 29 ], and that those with ASD were found to hold less stereotypical attitudes about others in general than those without ASD [ 18 ]. These results could imply that individuals with ASD would rate the target equivalently and not need an additional explanation for the behaviors because they already understand them.…”

“…Several studies support the idea that knowledge of or experience with ASD, or awareness of an ASD diagnosis may lessen the stigma often associated with the disorder [ 6 , 7 , 9 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 ]. First, greater knowledge of ASD has been shown to predict decreased stereotyping and thereby reduced social distancing from individuals diagnosed with ASD [ 18 ]. Additionally, when given a vignette that included a diagnosis label of ASD compared to a vignette with behaviors associated with ASD, participants were more likely to stigmatize the behaviors, but not the label [ 19 ].…”