Abstract
Adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often experience social marginalisation. This study uses a vignette-based design to clarify whether diagnostic disclosure affects social marginalisation in workplace contexts. It investigates two potential mediators of this relationship: affective response to and theory of mind for people with ASD. Participants (n = 170) read a description of a hypothetical co-worker with ASD traits, whose diagnosis was either disclosed or concealed. Providing a diagnostic label significantly reduced participants’ desire to socially distance themselves from the target. This effect was mediated by positive affective responses. Diagnostic disclosure did not influence theory of mind for people with ASD but did increase tendencies to attribute primary emotions to the target; however, this did not relate to social distance outcomes.
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Notes
All self-reported data are subject to social desirability concerns, but to varying degrees. Asking people to report their own emotional states (e.g. rate their levels of ‘excitement’, ‘guilt’, ‘upset’) arguably triggers less social desirability motives than asking them to make explicit judgements about the character or competence of another person.
Cronbach’s alpha values for specific measures were as follows: social distance = 0.85, positive affective response = 0.79, negative affective response = 0.78, perspective-taking = 0.74, ASQ-S = 0.82.
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This research was supported by a University College Dublin Seed Funding Grant (SF1624).
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COC conceived of the study, participated in its design and coordination, participated in the statistical analysis and drafted the manuscript; JB participated in the design and coordination of the study, collected the data and participated in the statistical analysis; BR participated in the design of the study and the statistical analysis. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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O’Connor, C., Burke, J. & Rooney, B. Diagnostic Disclosure and Social Marginalisation of Adults with ASD: Is There a Relationship and What Mediates It?. J Autism Dev Disord 50, 3367–3379 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-019-04239-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-019-04239-y