Self-Presentation and the Role of Perspective Taking and Social Motivation in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

We compared self-presentation abilities of 132 children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) to those of 41 typically developing (TD) peers, and examined the potential link with their social motivation and perspective taking. Participants introduced themselves to an interviewer in a baseline condition (without incentive) and a self-promotion condition (with incentive). Children with ASD (6-12 years) were just as likely as or even more likely than TD children to highlight personal characteristics that would increase their chances of obtaining the incentive. Thus, they were strategic in their self-presentation. However, adolescents with ASD (12-19 years) were less strategic than TD adolescents as well as children with ASD. We discuss the role of social motivation and perspective taking in children's self-presentation.

Reputation Management in Children on the Autism Spectrum

“…This task was designed to have lower verbal demands than previous tasks testing self-presentation in autism (e.g. Barbaro and Dissanayake 2007; Begeer et al 2008; Scheeren et al 2010, 2015). Children were asked to test three computer games run through MATLAB.…”

“…Recent research has shown, however, that reputation management is possible in some adolescents and adults on the autism spectrum (Cage et al 2013, 2016; Scheeren et al 2015), which raises questions about the underlying abilities that might explain variability in explicit and implicit reputation management in autistic individuals. Two main hypotheses have been proposed to explain why autistic individuals have difficulties with reputation management.…”

“…Scheeren et al (2010) suggested that autistic children may be less skilled at self-presentation due to a reduced propensity to exaggerate or make up facts to gain prizes. However, Scheeren et al (2015) subsequently found no difference between autistic and typical children in strategic self-presentation.…”

“…It seems plausible from self-presentation research (Barbaro and Dissanayake 2007; Begeer et al 2008; Scheeren et al 2010, 2015) that autistic children may be able to manage their reputation when there is an incentive to do so. One possible reputational incentive for autistic children is friendships.…”

“…Overall, these findings suggest that children with autism do not implicitly or automatically manage their reputation (Chevallier et al 2012b), but that the ability to explicitly or consciously do so may be preserved (Scheeren et al 2015). This suggestion corroborates research with autistic adults, which report a reduced propensity to implicitly manage reputation (Izuma et al 2011) but an intact, albeit reduced, ability to do so when reputation was more explicitly at risk (Cage et al 2013).…”