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Brief Report: Social Behavior and Special Interests in the Stigmatization of Autistic College Students

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Abstract

Autistic people, by definition, differ in social behavior from non-autistic individuals. One characteristic common to many autistic people is a special interest in a particular topic—something spoken about with such frequency and intensity that it may be stigmatized by non-autistic peers. We investigated college students’ interest in interacting with peers described as behaving in ways characteristic of autism (or not), and additionally described as having a special interest (or not). As expected, autistic characters were more stigmatized, but autistic characters with a special interest were not more stigmatized than those without. Only among non-autistic characters was having a special interest associated with greater stigmatization. Findings give further insight into factors influencing the stigmatization of autistic college students.

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Fig. 1

Notes

  1. To respect community preferences, we use identity-first language to refer to autistic people (Bury et al. 2020; Kenny et al. 2015).

  2. Participants also read and responded to vignette characters with social anxiety characteristics and with (or without) a special interest. These results are outside the scope of the current paper and are not reported here.

  3. Completion time data was examined for outliers (n = 47), defined as scores less than or greater than 1.5 times the inter-quartile range (IQR = 81.93 min; M = 471.27 min, SD = 1648.524 min, Mdn = 63.82 min). Analyses run with and without completion time outliers resulted in the same statistically significant pattern of results, and thus the 47 participants were included in the final dataset.

  4. Data violated assumptions of normality and homogeneity of variance; thus, non-parametric tests were used. Analyses were conducted using R using the RStudio environment (R Core Team 2020; R Studio Team 2018).

  5. Upon reviewer suggestion, we also conducted Point-Biserial Correlations on these data: Participants who endorsed any autism-related education were coded as “Yes” and those who endorsed “No education about ASD” were coded as “No.” The pattern of results was the same as those reported in the text.

  6. The education and exposure questionnaire contained the language “Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)”. We retain the original language the participants were exposed for transparency. Future measures designed by the first author will incorporate community language preferences (Bury et al. 2020; Kenny et al. 2015).

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Acknowledgments

This study is based on an undergraduate honors thesis submitted by the first author, under the supervision of Jennifer M. Gillis. Portions of the results were presented at the 2018 Annual Meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association. The authors would like to thank X. Tong for her statistical guidance, A. Lampi and Z. Sargent for their feedback, and G. Napoli and S. Singh for their assistance with the literature review.

Funding

No funding was received.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Kayden M. Stockwell

    Present address: Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, PO Box 400400, Charlottesville, VA, 22904-4400, USA

  2. Summer Bottini

    Present address: Marcus Autism Center, Atlanta, GA, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Binghamton University, State University of New York, Binghamton, NY, USA

    Kayden M. Stockwell, Summer Bottini & Jennifer M. Gillis

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, PO Box 400400, Charlottesville, VA, 22904-4400, USA

    Vikram K. Jaswal

Authors
  1. Kayden M. Stockwell
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  2. Summer Bottini
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  3. Vikram K. Jaswal
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  4. Jennifer M. Gillis
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kayden M. Stockwell.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by the institutional review board of the university.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Appendices

Appendix 1

Vignettes

Non-Autistic × No Special Interest

You walk into the first club meeting of the year and take a seat next to another member. You take your coat off and put it on the back of your chair, just like the other member has done. After taking a seat, you introduce yourself and hold out your hand. The other student turns their chair towards you, shakes your hand, and says “I’m C”. You ask what year C is in, and they answer with the same year as you. C asks what you’re interested in and you talk about that for a while. C starts telling you about a TV show they watch and ask if you’ve seen it. You talk for a while about shows you both like. Eventually C notices the sports logo on your shirt and asks you about the team. (137 words, 8 lines).

Autistic × No Special Interest

You walk into the first club meeting of the year and take a seat next to another member. As you take your coat off, you notice the member is wearing shorts and a t-shirt, even though it is winter. After taking a seat, you introduce yourself and hold out your hand. The other student does not look up from the book they are reading and says “I’m A” without shaking your hand. You ask what year A is in, and they answer with the same year as you, and quickly begins telling you about a TV show they watched last night. You try to tell A about some of your interests, but they always respond with odd comments and take the conversation in unexpected direction. You look bored, but A doesn’t seem to notice. (134 words, 8 lines).

Non-autistic × Common Special Interest

You walk into the first club meeting of the year and take a seat next to another member. You take your coat off and put it on the back of your chair, just like the other member has done. After taking a seat, you introduce yourself and hold out your hand. The other student turns their chair towards you, shakes your hand, and says “I’m F”. You ask what year F is in, and they answer with the same year as you. F asks what you’re interested in and you talk about that for a while. F starts telling you about the level design of a popular video game and asks if you know anything about that game. They start discussing the history of the game franchise and notice you look bored. F notices the sports logo on your shirt and asks you about that team. (146 words, 8 lines).

Autistic × Common Special Interest

You walk into the first club meeting of the year and take a seat next to another member. As you take your coat off, you notice the member is wearing shorts and a t-shirt, even though it is winter. After taking a seat, you introduce yourself and hold out your hand. The other student does not look up from the book they are reading and says “I’m D” without shaking your hand. You ask what year D is in, and they answer with the same year as you, and quickly begins telling you about the level design of a popular video game. You try to tell D about some of your interests, but they always return the conversation to the video game. You look bored, but D doesn’t seem to notice. (131 words, 8 lines).

Non-Autistic × Uncommon Special Interest

You walk into the first club meeting of the year and take a seat next to another member. You take your coat off and put it on the back of your chair, just like the other member has done. After taking a seat, you introduce yourself and hold out your hand. The other student turns their chair towards you, shakes your hand, and says “I’m J”. You ask what year J is in, and they answer with the same year as you. J asks what you’re interested in and you talk about that for a while. J starts telling you about computer hardware and asks if you know anything about computers. They start explaining the basics of hardware and notice that you look bored. J notices the sports logo on your shirt and asks you about the team. (138 words, 8 lines).

Autistic × Uncommon Special Interest

You walk into the first club meeting of the year and take a seat next to another member. As you take your coat off, you notice the member is wearing shorts and a t-shirt, even though it is winter. After taking a seat, you introduce yourself and hold out your hand. The other student does not look up from the book they are reading and says “I’m G” without shaking your hand. You ask what year G is in, and they answer with the same year as you, and quickly begins telling you about the deficits in the design of a newly released computer motherboard. You try to tell G about some of your interests, but they always return the conversation to computer hardware. You look bored, but G doesn’t seem to notice. (133 words, 8 lines).

Appendix 2

Social Distance Scale

  1. 1.

    How willing are you to have a class with someone like A?

  2. 2.

    How willing are you to have someone like A in your study group?

  3. 3.

    How willing are you to do a class project with someone like A?

  4. 4.

    How willing are you to go to a social event (i.e. a party, movie, or concert) with someone like A?

  5. 5.

    How willing are you to go to a sporting event (i.e. a football game) with someone like A?

  6. 6.

    How willing are you to have your sibling marry someone like A?

  7. 7.

    How willing are you to have someone like A take care of your pet?

  8. 8.

    How willing are you to go on a date with someone like A?

  9. 9.

    How willing are you to be a co-worker on the same job as someone like A?

  10. 10.

    How willing are you to have someone like A as a neighbor?

  11. 11.

    How willing are you to live in the same apartment/house as someone like A?

  12. 12.

    How willing are you to be supervised by someone like A?

  13. 13.

    How willing are you to carpool with someone like A on a daily basis?

The letter identifier of the vignette subject was changed to match each vignette presented (i.e. The vignette with the character identified as C was paired with the Social Distance Scale referencing “someone like C”).

Appendix 3

Education and Exposure Questionnaire

  1. 1.

    What is your level of education about Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)Footnote 6? Please select any item that applies to you.

  2. –

    No education about ASD

  3. –

    Learned about ASD through television program

  4. –

    Read a book about ASD

  5. –

    Had a class in high school that taught about ASD

  6. –

    Had an introductory psychology course at college that taught about ASD

  7. –

    Had another college level course that taught about ASD

  8. –

    Had graduate level course that taught about ASD

  9. –

    Had on the job training about individuals with ASD

  10. –

    Have studied diagnostic criteria for ASD\

  11. 2.

    What is your level of experience with someone with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)?

    Please select any item that applies to you.

  12. –

    Never observed a person with ASD

  13. –

    Observed, in passing, a person with ASD

  14. –

    Watched a movie or TV documentary about ASD

  15. –

    Observed a person with ASD frequently

  16. –

    Was a classmate to a person with ASD

  17. –

    Was a co-worker to a person with ASD

  18. –

    Relative has ASD

  19. –

    Live with or have lived with a person who has ASD

  20. –

    Personally have Autism

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Stockwell, K.M., Bottini, S., Jaswal, V.K. et al. Brief Report: Social Behavior and Special Interests in the Stigmatization of Autistic College Students. J Autism Dev Disord 51, 3356–3364 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04769-w

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