Camouflaging in autism: A systematic review Cook, Julia; Hull, Laura; Crane, Laura ...
Clinical psychology review,
November 2021, 2021-11-00, 20211101, Letnik:
89
Journal Article
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Some autistic people employ strategies and behaviours to cope with the everyday social world, thereby ‘camouflaging’ their autistic differences and difficulties. This review aimed to systematically ...appraise and synthesise the current evidence base pertaining to autistic camouflaging. Following a systematic search of eight databases, 29 studies quantifying camouflaging in children and adults with autism diagnoses or high levels of autistic traits were reviewed. The multiple methods used to measure camouflaging broadly fell under two different approaches: internal-external discrepancy or self-report. These approaches appear to relate to two distinct but potentially connected elements of camouflaging: observable behavioural presentations and self-perceived camouflaging efforts. While significant variation was noted across individual study findings, much of the existing literature supported three preliminary findings about the nature of autistic camouflaging: (1) adults with more self-reported autistic traits report greater engagement in camouflaging; (2) sex and gender differences exist in camouflaging; and (3) higher self-reported camouflaging is associated with worse mental health outcomes. However, the research base was limited regarding participant characterisation and representativeness, which suggests that conclusions cannot be applied to the autistic community as a whole. We propose priorities for future research in refining the current understanding of camouflaging and improving measurement methods.
•Current approaches to measuring camouflaging appear to measure ‘camouflaging intent’ and ‘camouflaging efficacy’.•Adults with more self-reported autistic traits report greater engagement in camouflaging.•Sex and gender differences exist in camouflaging.•Higher self-reported camouflaging is associated with worse mental health outcomes.•Study designs are limited by poor participant characterisation and representativeness.
This meta-analytic review of 42 studies covering 8,009 participants (ages 4–20) examines the relation of moral emotion attributions to prosocial and antisocial behavior. A significant association is ...found between moral emotion attributions and prosocial and antisocial behaviors (d = .26, 95% CI .15, .38; d = .39, 95% CI .29, .49). Effect sizes differ considerably across studies and this heterogeneity is attributed to moderator variables. Specifically, effect sizes for predicted antisocial behavior are larger for self-attributed moral emotions than for emotions attributed to hypothetical story characters. Effect sizes for prosocial and antisocial behaviors are associated with several other study characteristics. Results are discussed with respect to the potential significance of moral emotion attributions for the social behavior of children and adolescents.
This article examines the role of moral identity symbolization in motivating prosocial behaviors. We propose a 3-way interaction of moral identity symbolization, internalization, and recognition to ...predict prosocial behavior. When moral identity internalization is low, we hypothesize that high moral identity symbolization motivates recognized prosocial behavior due to the opportunity to present one's moral characteristics to others. In contrast, when moral identity internalization is high, prosocial behavior is motivated irrespective of the level of symbolization and recognition. Two studies provide support for this pattern examining volunteering of time. Our results provide a framework for predicting prosocial behavior by combining the 2 dimensions of moral identity with the situational factor of recognition.
In the study reported here, we tested the hypothesis that the Fast Track preventive intervention's positive impact on antisocial behavior in adolescence is mediated by its impact on social-cognitive ...processes during elementary school. Fast Track is the largest and longest federally funded preventive intervention trial for children showing aggressive behavior at an early age. Participants were 891 high-risk kindergarten children (69% male, 31% female; 49% ethnic minority, 51% ethnic majority) who were randomly assigned to an intervention or a control group by school cluster. Multiyear intervention addressed social-cognitive processes through social-skill training groups, parent groups, classroom curricula, peer coaching, and tutoring. Assigning children to the intervention decreased their mean antisocial-behavior score after Grade 9 by 0.16 standardized units (p < .01). Structural equation models indicated that 27% of the intervention's impact on antisocial behavior was mediated by its impact on three social-cognitive processes: reducing hostile-attribution biases, increasing competent response generation to social problems, and devaluing aggression. These findings support a model of antisocial behavioral development mediated by social-cognitive processes, and they guide prevention planners to focus on these processes.
COVID-19 changed our lives in many aspects. Among the most spectacular changes was probably the mandatory wearing of masks, which was proven to negatively influence human social interactions and ...communication. The various COVID protocols, however, not only affected humans but also had a huge impact on companion animals, such as dogs, living in human society. For example, it is particularly alarming, that throughout the pandemic the number of registered dog bites increased significantly. The phenomenon has been explained by the generally elevated stress level as well as family members and dogs spending more time together in restricted closed space. On the other hand, the communication deficit caused by the constant usage of masks cannot be ruled out as a further contributing factor. In the current study, we aim to test the effect of human’s mask wearing on dog’s behaviour in a range of situation. To this end we used previously validated standard test situations (responsiveness to human pointing, basic obedience, spontaneous following, emotion recognition, threatening approach) in which the human experimenter was present either with or without wearing a mask. N=21 family dogs were tested in a within subject design, with a minimum of 3-day difference between the two occasions. Tests were carried out in different randomized sequences for each subject to eliminate the order effect. The order of the masked and maskless occasions was randomized as well. We found that the mask-wearing of the experimenter did not influence dogs' performance in cognitive tests (responsiveness to human pointing, basic obedience, spontaneous following, emotion recognition; all p>0.05). The only significant difference observed was in dogs' reactions to the masked versus non-masked experimenter during the threatening approach situation. Reaction scores were coded on a 1–5 scale, ranging from friendly to aggressive. The number of more aggressive responses was significantly higher for the masked experimenter compared to the non-masked. These results have two important implications. First, it seems that (at least in the situations investigated) dogs' cognitive performance is not affected by the experimenter’s mask wearing, supporting the notion that research conducted during COVID protocols enforcing mask-wearing remains valid. Second, and perhaps more importantly, dogs seem to react with more aggression towards unfamiliar people wearing masks in ambivalent situations. Therefore, special attention needs to be devoted to dog attacks when these regulations are in place. Further research should address additional factors, such as the familiarity of the interacting (masked) human.
•Pet dog' reaction to humans' mask wearing (mandatory during COVID-19 lockdowns) is investigated.•Dogs' behaviour is not affected by mask wearing in simple cognitive tests.•This supports the general assumption that data collected during COVID-19 lockdowns might be valid.•Dogs show a more aggressive reaction to a human wearing a mask in a threatening approach situation.•Mask wearing may thus play a role in increased dog bite incidents during COVID-19 pandemic.
Inferring influence and leadership in moving animal groups Strandburg-Peshkin, Ariana; Papageorgiou, Danai; Crofoot, Margaret C. ...
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological sciences,
05/2018, Letnik:
373, Številka:
1746
Journal Article
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Collective decision-making is a daily occurrence in the lives of many group-living animals, and can have critical consequences for the fitness of individuals. Understanding how decisions are reached, ...including who has influence and the mechanisms by which information and preferences are integrated, has posed a fundamental challenge. Here, we provide a methodological framework for studying influence and leadership in groups. We propose that individuals have influence if their actions result in some behavioural change among their group-mates, and are leaders if they consistently influence others. We highlight three components of influence (influence instances, total influence and consistency of influence), which can be assessed at two levels (individual-to-individual and individual-to-group). We then review different methods, ranging from individual positioning within groups to information-theoretic approaches, by which influence has been operationally defined in empirical studies, as well as how such observations can be aggregated to give insight into the underlying decision-making process. We focus on the domain of collective movement, with a particular emphasis on methods that have recently been, or are being, developed to take advantage of simultaneous tracking data. We aim to provide a resource bringing together methodological tools currently available for studying leadership in moving animal groups, as well as to discuss the limitations of current methodologies and suggest productive avenues for future research.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Collective movement ecology’.
New technologies have vastly increased the available data on animal movement and behaviour. Consequently, new methods deciphering the spatial and temporal interactions between individuals and their ...environments are vital. Network analyses offer a powerful suite of tools to disentangle the complexity within these dynamic systems, and we review these tools, their application, and how they have generated new ecological and behavioural insights. We suggest that network theory can be used to model and predict the influence of ecological and environmental parameters on animal movement, focusing on spatial and social connectivity, with fundamental implications for conservation. Refining how we construct and randomise spatial networks at different temporal scales will help to establish network theory as a prominent, hypothesis-generating tool in movement ecology.
Network theory is developing in its application across multiple disciplines.
Animal movement networks can reveal important insight about ecological connectivity.
Further development is necessary to fully encapsulate temporal dynamics.
We discuss using network metrics to understand spatial and social ecology.