Self-reported camouflaging behaviours used by autistic adults during everyday social interactions

Abstract

Autistic people may camouflage their innate autistic social behaviours to adapt to, cope within and/or influence the predominately neurotypical social landscape. This study describes behaviours exhibited, altered or avoided by autistic adults whilst camouflaging (i.e. camouflaging behaviours). Using Interpersonal Process Recall methodology, 17 autistic adults (8 women, 6 men and 3 agender/gender neutral individuals) participated in a brief social task designed to replicate a common day-to-day social situation. Participants then watched a video of their interaction with a researcher, actively identifying and describing camouflaging behaviours. Using qualitative content analysis, descriptions of 38 camouflaging behaviours described by participants were clustered into four main categories and seven subcategories: (1) masking, (2) innocuous engagement (subcategories: passive encouragement, centring social partner, deferential engagement and reducing social risk), (3) modelling neurotypical communication and (4) active self-presentation (subcategories: reciprocal social behaviours, risky social behaviours, and comfortable and familiar social behaviours). The novel use of Interpersonal Process Recall methodology addressed limitations in existing camouflaging research and facilitated the identification of previously unreported camouflaging behaviours. These camouflaging behaviours are discussed with reference to literature concerning interpersonal research and theory within and outside the field of autism. Lay abstract Camouflaging can be thought of as the process through which autistic people modify their natural social behaviours to adapt to, cope within or influence the largely neurotypical (non-autistic) social world. Many autistic people experience negative reactions to their natural or intuitive social behaviours when interacting with non-autistic people. Over time, in response to these negative reactions, autistic people’s social behaviour often changes. We refer to autistic people’s changed behaviours as ‘camouflaging behaviours’. Research exploring camouflaging behaviours is still at an early stage. This study investigated camouflaging behaviours used by autistic adults in everyday social interactions using a research method that was new to the field of autism. Specifically, 17 autistic adults were filmed taking part in a common everyday social situation – a conversation with a stranger. With the help of the video of this conversation, they then showed and described their camouflaging behaviours to a researcher. These autistic people identified and described a total of 38 different camouflaging behaviours. The detailed and specific information provided by autistic adults about camouflaging behaviours generated important new insights into the ways in which autistic people adapt to, cope within and influence the neurotypical (non-autistic) social world.

Repetitive behaviours in autistic and non-autistic adults: Associations with sensory sensitivity and impact on self-efficacy

“…Results suggest that social pressures on autistic people to supress or alter stims, may reduce their ability to cope with day-to-day challenges. These findings are in keeping with previous studies which have shown that autistic people frequently supress stims and repetitive behaviours to be more socially acceptable and that doing so was detrimental to the individual (Cook et al, 2021;Hull et al, 2017;Livingston et al, 2018;Manor-Binyamini & Schreiber-Divon, 2019). Previous studies on masking (including masking stims) suggest that masking is exhausting, stressful and associated with high levels of anxiety (Bradley et al, 2021;Livingston et al, 2018).…”

Camouflage and masking behavior in adult autism

“…Camouflage was assessed using different measures. The most common tool (eight studies) was the Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire (CAT-Q) ( 26–31 , 36 , 39 ) which is a 25-item self-report questionnaire developed in 2018 by Hull et al ( 17 ). One study utilized a 31-item Compensation Checklist to evaluate strategies including masking, shallow compensation, deep compensation, and accommodation in participants ( 32 ).…”

The Components of Interpersonal Synchrony in the Typical Population and in Autism: A Conceptual Analysis

“…For example, the online process of understanding the mental states of a conversational partner is a relatively intuitive process for non-autistic people, but autistic people may need to engage in effortful compensatory strategies ( Livingston et al, 2020 ). Autistic people may also engage in effortful behaviours aimed at masking autistic social tendencies, which could include suppressing repetitive behaviours, carefully monitoring their eye contact, or using behavioural rules or conversational scripts to guide social behaviour ( Livingston et al, 2019b ; Cook et al, 2021a , b ). Attending to such strategies during conversation may deplete the attentional resources available to autistic people for attending to IS-relevant cues, leading to reduced IS during the interaction.…”