Exploring Camouflaging and Safety Behaviours in Autistic Young People Experiencing Social Anxiety

Social camouflaging in autism often involves behaviours such as ‘masking’ whereby autistic individuals may hide their autistic traits to ‘fit in’ with neurotypical peers. Behaviours associated with camouflaging show some similarities with safety behaviours in social anxiety, such as impression management. In this research, the aim is to explore how socially anxious autistic young people understand the functions and consequences of these behaviours, how these manifest in their day-to-day lives, and the possible similarities and differences between these behaviours. If we better understand how young people themselves view camouflaging and safety behaviours, this may be useful for informing clinical practice such as the adaptation of social anxiety treatment for autistic young people. We will ask the participants to complete a small pack of widely-used questionnaires (assessing autistic traits, social anxiety symptoms, social anxiety related cognitions and safety behaviours, and camouflaging) via Qualtrics and then invite them to a single-session semi-structured interview based on a topic guide. In the interview, they will discuss social camouflaging and safety behaviours with a researcher, with reference to the behaviours identified as most significant to them from completing the questionnaires. We will then ask participants to repeat some of the questionnaires (i.e., social anxiety related behaviours and camouflaging) post-interview via Qualtrics. The data will be analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.