Why Social Psychology Needs Autism and Why Autism Needs Social Psychology: Forensic and Clinical Considerations

Abstract

We know a lot about why the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has risen so dramatically since the 1960s. However, social science and social psychology in particular fall short in the analysis of autistic behavior, the real-life manifestations of the disorder. In this address, I suggest that unless we tackle behavior in interaction, rather than as emanating from individuals, we cannot analytically comprehend behavior as a socially real and holistic entity. The particular phenomena under investigation is transpositioning, or how a neurotypical (NT) professional initiates a sequence of action (first position) involving a recipient who has ASD. Then, the person with ASD fashions a response (second position) that is resistive or noncooperative. However, the NT professional subsequently fashions an action that portrays the ASD person's second position or responsive behavior as an initiation or feature independent of what may have prompted it. Moreover, in reporting on the event in police, clinical, or other records, there is an elision of the prior initiations or first position actions such that the person with ASD is shown to have manifested ostensibly autonomous and anomalous behavior requiring interventions or remediation.

Putting autism research in social contexts

“…Conceptualizations of autism as a context-free, intraindividual manifestation of impairments can also negatively impact autistic people's lives (Botha, 2021;Grinker, 2015;Maynard, 2019;Milton, 2017). For example, Maynard (2019) describes transpositioning, which is a three-part process that begins when an authority figure (e.g. interventionist, diagnostician, police officer) initiates an interaction with an autistic person by demanding compliance with a predefined protocol (e.g.…”

Invisible Disabilities and Inequality

“…Second, as Phelan and colleagues (2014) have discussed with reference to mental illness and other stigmatized statuses, unlike gender and race, invisible disabilities are generally understood to be deviant and the people with them as being abnormal. Third, invisible disabilities also are often obtrusive—they are socially disruptive and introduce discomfort and uncertainty into interpersonal interactions (Goffman 1963; Phelan et al 2014), as Maynard’s (2019) research on interactional exchanges in autism so effectively illustrates. Fourth and finally, invisible disabilities differ from traditional dimensions of inequality in that they are defined by cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and/or intellectual impairments.…”

“…Social psychologists, in particular, have considered the similarities and differences between status and stigma through the lens of physical disabilities and mental illness (e.g., Lucas and Phelan 2012; Phelan et al 2014, 2019). Specific invisible disabilities, including ADHD and autism, have received increasing attention from sociological social psychologists in the past 5 to 10 years (e.g., Maynard 2019; Maynard and Turowetz 2017; Owens 2020, 2021; Owens and Jackson 2017). Yet for all the important scholarship in this area, disability remains underrecognized as a source of inequality (Mauldin and Brown 2021) and understudied by sociological social psychologists.…”

The Recognition and Interactional Management of Face Threats: Comparing Neurotypical Participants and Participants with Asperger's Syndrome

“…Interactions including participants with ASD may therefore involve more variation (cf. Maynard 2019) in the facework patterns, and the analysis of these interactions may deepen our understanding of what facework is really about.…”