Brief Report: Does Autistic Community Connectedness Moderate the Relationship Between Masking and Wellbeing?

Abstract

Background: Masking or camouflaging involves blending in or covering a stigmatised identity, to avoid discrimination and 'pass' within society. Autistic people often report masking, both intentionally and unintentionally, to get by in social situations. Autistic people who report high rates of masking also tend to experience poorer mental health. It is important we understand whether there are variables which can protect against the negative effects of masking. One such potential variable is autistic community connectednessbeing part of and belonging to the autistic community. Past research suggests autistic people benefit from being socially connected to other autistic people. We investigated whether autistic community connectedness could moderate the relationship between masking and wellbeing.Methods: One hundred and ninety-six autistic people completed an online survey including measures of autistic community connectedness, camouflaging autistic traits and mental wellbeing. We used moderation regression analysis to test whether autistic community connectedness acted as a buffer between masking and wellbeing.Results: Higher self-reported masking related to poorer mental wellbeing. Higher autistic community connectedness related to more positive wellbeing. Higher autistic community connectedness correlated with more masking. However, there was no interaction effect, and autistic community connectedness did not moderate the relationship between masking and wellbeing.Conclusions: Although autistic community connectedness did relate to more positive mental wellbeing overall, it did not moderate the negative relationship between masking and wellbeing. If masking relates to the prejudice faced by autistic people, those with greater attachment to the autistic community may also be more aware of discrimination against their community. Further, autistic people who are more connected might experience a higher salience of masking when moving between autistic and non-autistic settings. Tackling prejudice towards autistic people is critical in helping to protect autistic people against masking, and we must endeavour to change perceptions and increase inclusion of autistic people.

Autistic camouflaging across the spectrum

“…3 Context thus appears to be another dimension of camouflaging that should be explored in more depth, also to better understand which social contexts are experienced as more (or less) effortful or harmful by autistic people (Cage et al, 2022;Pearson & Rose, 2021). Several other dimensions of camouflaging have been mentioned to varying degrees in the literature and are worth exploring in more detail.…”

“…Some authorssuch as Pearson and Rose (2021) propose a broader characterization of masking that includes the suppression of behaviors as well as the production of a range of alternatives. However, generally speaking, researchers who do not sharply distinguish between masking and compensationor who are critical of the notion of compensation altogether 4 -tend to share the view that camouflaging has a predominantly negative impact and stress its correlations with suicidality, burnout, and poorer mental health outcomes (Cage et al, 2022;McCracken, 2021;Pearson & Rose, 2021;Radulski, 2022).…”

“…g., avoiding bullying (Pearson & Rose, 2021, p. 8). This view is connected to the idea that camouflaging would be primarily a response to autism-related stigma (Cage et al, 2022;Perry et al, 2022; see also Lawson, 2020 on adaptive morphing), and thus something that could be ameliorated by radically changing the socio-cultural as well as material conditions that force people to adopt passing behaviors in the first place (Radulski, 2022).…”

“…As a consequence, it is unclear whether autistic people who are excluded by current research would experience camouflaging in similar ways, also in connection with anxiety. Moreover, studies investigating the relationship between camouflaging and mental health tend to be cross-sectional in nature and thus unable to establish causal relationships between the constructs involved (Cage et al, 2022;Cage & Troxell-Whitman, 2019;Hull et al, 2021). The available data are thus insufficient to determine whether camouflaging would cause anxiety or rather pre-existing higher levels of anxiety may cause increased camouflaging behavior (see Hull et al, 2021, p. 6).…”

“…12 As a consequence, some recent publications are explicitly framed in terms of reducing or minimizing the negative effects associated with masking (see for instance Cage et al, 2022;Belcher, 2022). dispositions (thereby making camouflaging potentially indistinguishable from social learning or imitation).…”