Story worlds as social armor: Novel reading habits attenuate the autistic-traits to social anxiety pathway

OBJECTIVE: Autistic traits are common in school-age children and frequently co-occur with social anxiety, which can precipitate behavioral problems. Guided by Social Motivation Theory and the Reading-Empathy framework, we tested whether children's self-directed novel-reading habits (NRH) buffer the pathway from autistic symptoms to behavioral problems via social anxiety. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey was completed by 1240 pupils aged 8-15 years from mainstream schools in Luzhou, China. Measures included the Childhood Autism Rating Scale, Social Anxiety Scale for Children, Child Behavior Checklist (behavior-problem indices) and a five-item NRH inventory. PROCESS Model 59 with 5000 bootstrap samples estimated a moderated-mediation model, controlling for age, sex and socio-economic status. All instruments displayed adequate internal consistency (Cronbach's α ≥ 0.82) and procedures complied with institutional ethics approval. RESULTS: Autistic symptoms showed a strong positive association with social anxiety (β = 0.2925, p < 0.001) and, through social anxiety, influenced behavioral problems. Direct effects on behavior remained significant after covariate adjustment. NRH significantly weakened the autistic-symptom→social-anxiety slope; the index of moderated mediation confirmed a buffering effect on the indirect pathway from autistic traits to behavioral problems (IMM = -0.0229, 95% CI [-0.03, -0.01]). CONCLUSION: Consistent with Social Motivation Theory, higher autistic traits elevate children's social anxiety and, indirectly, their behavioral difficulties. Frequent engagement with long-form fiction provides an alternative social-cognitive practice context that dampens anxiety reactivity to autistic traits, thereby reducing downstream behavioral risk. Encouraging immersive, self-chosen novel reading may therefore complement conventional social-skills and emotion-regulation programmes for autistic youth within ordinary classroom literacy practice.