Camouflaging in Autistic Adults is Modulated by Autistic and Neurotypical Characteristics of Interaction Partners

Many autistic people reportedly engage in camouflaging to navigate everyday social interactions; however, the function of this behavior remains largely unknown. We hypothesized that autistic people camouflage more toward neurotypical others than toward autistic others, employing it as a strategy to "fit in" within the neurotypical-majority community. This study aimed to empirically investigate this hypothesis for the first time. Autistic and neurotypical participants took part in a web-based survey. Data from 48 autistic and 137 neurotypical participants were analyzed. Camouflaging toward autistic and neurotypical others was separately measured using the modified Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire (CAT-Q). For each CAT-Q item, a sentence describing a hypothetical interaction partner with autistic or neurotypical characteristics was added, creating respective sentence conditions. The interaction effect of the participants' characteristics and sentence conditions was analyzed using a multilevel regression analysis, accounting for differing individual baselines. The analysis revealed an interaction effect between participants' characteristics and sentence conditions. The autistic group showed significantly more camouflaging in the autistic sentence condition than in the neurotypical sentence condition. Conversely, the neurotypical group did not differ significantly in camouflaging levels in the sentence conditions. Contrary to our hypothesis, autistic people demonstrated more camouflaging toward autistic others than toward neurotypical others. This finding questions the assumption that autistic people camouflage to assimilate into a neurotypical-majority society. Instead, it could be conceptualized as a more general social strategy used by autistic people aiming to improve their relationships with others.