Is Camouflaging Autistic Traits Associated with Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviours? Expanding the Interpersonal Psychological Theory of Suicide in an Undergraduate Student Sample

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Abstract

The current study explored whether people who camouflage autistic traits are more likely to experience thwarted belongingness and suicidality, as predicted by the Interpersonal Psychological Theory of Suicide (IPTS). 160 undergraduate students (86.9% female, 18–23 years) completed a cross-sectional online survey from 8th February to 30th May 2019 including self-report measures of thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness, autistic traits, depression, anxiety, camouflaging autistic traits, and lifetime suicidality. Results suggest that camouflaging autistic traits is associated with increased risk of experiencing thwarted belongingness and lifetime suicidality. It is important for suicide theories such as the IPTS to include variables relevant to the broader autism phenotype, to increase applicability of models to both autistic and non-autistic people.

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Most cited references 53

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On the ontological status of autism: the ‘double empathy problem’

Damian Milton (2012)

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The Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised (SBQ-R): validation with clinical and nonclinical samples.

A. Osman, C L Bagge, P Gutierrez … (2001)

Past suicidal behaviors including ideation and attempts have been identified as significant risk factors for subsequent suicidal behavior. However, inadequate attention has been given to the development or validation of measures of past suicidal behavior. The present study examined the reliability and validity of a brief self-report measure of past suicidal behavior, the Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised (SBQ-R). Participants included psychiatric inpatient adolescents, high school students, psychiatric inpatient adults, and undergraduates. Logistic regression analyses provided empirical support for the usefulness of the SBQ-R as a risk measure of suicide to differentiate between suicide-risk and nonsuicidal study participants. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses indicated that the most useful cutoff scores on the SBQ-R were 7 for nonsuicidal samples, and 8 for clinical samples. Both the single SBQ-R Item 1 and SBQ-R total scores are recommended for use in clinical and nonclinical settings.

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Quantifying and exploring camouflaging in men and women with autism

Meng-Chuan Lai, Michael V Lombardo, Amber NV Ruigrok … (2016)

Autobiographical descriptions and clinician observations suggest that some individuals with autism, particularly females, ‘camouflage’ their social communication difficulties, which may require considerable cognitive effort and lead to increased stress, anxiety and depression. Using data from 60 age- and IQ-matched men and women with autism (without intellectual disability), we operationalized camouflaging in adults with autism for the first time as the quantitative discrepancy between the person’s ‘external’ behavioural presentation in social–interpersonal contexts (measured by the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule) and the person’s ‘internal’ status (dispositional traits measured by the Autism Spectrum Quotient and social cognitive capability measured by the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ Test). We found that the operationalized camouflaging measure was not significantly correlated with age or IQ. On average, women with autism had higher camouflaging scores than men with autism (Cohen’s d = 0.98), with substantial variability in both groups. Greater camouflaging was associated with more depressive symptoms in men and better signal-detection sensitivity in women with autism. The neuroanatomical association with camouflaging score was largely sex/gender-dependent and significant only in women: from reverse inference, the most correlated cognitive terms were about emotion and memory. The underlying constructs, measurement, mechanisms, consequences and heterogeneity of camouflaging in autism warrant further investigation.

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Author and article information

Contributors

S. A. Cassidy:

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1982-3034

Sarah.Cassidy@Nottingham.ac.uk

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): J Autism Dev Disord

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): J Autism Dev Disord

Title: Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders

Publisher: Springer US (New York )

ISSN (Print): 0162-3257

ISSN (Electronic): 1573-3432

Publication date (Electronic): 9 December 2019

Publication date PMC-release: 9 December 2019

Publication date (Print): 2020

Volume: 50

Issue: 10

Pages: 3638-3648

Affiliations

[1 ]GRID grid.4563.4, ISNI 0000 0004 1936 8868, School of Psychology, , University of Nottingham, ; Nottingham, NG7 2RD UK

[2 ]GRID grid.1006.7, ISNI 0000 0001 0462 7212, Institute of Neuroscience, , Newcastle University, ; Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

[3 ]GRID grid.8096.7, ISNI 0000000106754565, Present Address: School of Psychological, Social and Behavioural Sciences, , Coventry University, ; Coventry, UK

[4 ]GRID grid.8096.7, ISNI 0000000106754565, Centre for Innovative Research Across the Lifespan, , Coventry University, ; Coventry, UK

Author information

S. A. Cassidy http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1982-3034

Article

Publisher ID: 4323

DOI: 10.1007/s10803-019-04323-3

PMC ID: 7502035

PubMed ID: 31820344

SO-VID: 37b26e79-4be9-49ee-a82a-7d854e56e93e

License:

Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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Funding

Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000269, Economic and Social Research Council;

Award ID: ES/N000501/2

Award Recipient : S. A. Cassidy

Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100011706, Autistica;

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ScienceOpen disciplines: Neurology

Keywords: autistic traits,broader autism phenotype,camouflaging,masking,suicide,suicidality,interpersonal psychological theory of suicide,autism spectrum conditions

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ScienceOpen disciplines: Neurology

Keywords: autistic traits, broader autism phenotype, camouflaging, masking, suicide, suicidality, interpersonal psychological theory of suicide, autism spectrum conditions

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Is Camouflaging Autistic Traits Associated with Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviours? Expanding the Interpersonal Psychological Theory of Suicide in an Undergraduate Student Sample

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Most cited references 53

On the ontological status of autism: the ‘double empathy problem’

The Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised (SBQ-R): validation with clinical and nonclinical samples.

Quantifying and exploring camouflaging in men and women with autism

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