Trends in Cognitive Sciences
OpinionReconsidering autistic ‘camouflaging’ as transactional impression management
Section snippets
Revisiting autistic ‘camouflaging’
The concept of ‘camouflaging’ (see Glossary) has recently garnered considerable interest in autism and mental health research [1,2]. Broadly, camouflaging refers to neurodivergent individuals’ efforts to minimize the visibility of their differences (e.g., autism). Such efforts have also been described as ‘accommodation/adaptation/coping strategies’, ‘masking’, ‘compensation’, and ‘passing as non-autistic’ [3] in autobiographical and clinician writings [4., 5., 6.] and recent empirical studies [3
The conceptual inclusion of camouflaging as impression management
Goffman described IM as the regulation of information to steer others’ perceptions of the self, fostering an idealized public self-image within an interaction [23]. It is essential to consider IM through a transactional lens. IM presupposes two parties in a social exchange; an ‘actor’ performs a social persona that adheres to the expectations and values of an immediate ‘audience’ (e.g., playing up one’s competence during a job interview). This exchange is multifaceted and encompasses a variety
Motivations underlying impression management/camouflaging
Conventionally, IM is used to enhance one’s prospects at achieving interpersonal goals [20] or pragmatic rewards (e.g., success during interviews) [43]. Beyond conventional pursuits, we highlight two relation-oriented IM goals that overlap in autistic and neurotypical populations: mitigating thwarted belonging and stigmatized identities.
Social acceptance and belonging needs are core IM motives [20,44]. The emotional pain and stress following threats of social exclusion [45] initiate social
Mechanisms of impression management/camouflaging: a computational account
We consider IM under a predictive coding framework, applying an iterative processing approach that captures the dynamic, context-dependent, and transactional nature of IM [10,14,18]. Our approach provides a general computational account of IM mechanisms across human populations while also emphasizing the unique computational challenges faced by autistic people.
Consequences of impression management/camouflaging
IM serves important social functions across formal and interpersonal contexts. In many instances, however, it comes with costs to psychological wellbeing. The suppression of internal affective states at the workplace (i.e., ‘surface acting’ in emotional labor) is linked to higher feelings of inauthenticity, depersonalization, and emotional exhaustion/burnout [98]. Moreover, IM is consummatory [99]; persistent demands on cognitive resources lead to reduced physical stamina, intellectual acuity,
Concluding remarks
Our transactional IM framework and computational account offer empirically testable predictions for future investigations. Autistic camouflaging should be conceptualized as IM, with shared underlying constructs and computational mechanisms across humans. Yet, unique contextual, mechanistic, and outcome features exist in autistic IM experiences. Navigating neurotypical contexts comes with distinct challenges for autistic people in decoding social discourses and managing impressions accordingly.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Tim (Wei-Ting) Chao, Suraiya Allidina, Rebekah Gelpí, Iciar Iturmendi Sabater, and Lucy Livingston for invaluable discussions and thoughtful feedback related to the conceptualization and writing of this manuscript. This work is supported by the Academic Scholars Award from the Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Sex and Gender Science Chair (GSB 171373).
Declaration of interests
We have no conflict of interests to disclose.
Glossary
- Bayesian theory of mind (BToM)
- a process of rational probabilistic inference, whereby an observer integrates their existing beliefs of an agent’s mental states and observable behaviors to causally explain, and continuously update, the agent’s unobservable internal states (e.g., goals or desires).
- Camouflaging
- verbal and nonverbal strategies neurodivergent/autistic people employ to model neurotypical behaviors, thereby minimizing the visibility of differences, facilitating social connections and
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Twitter: @mengchuanlai (M.-C. Lai).