Autistic Traits Moderate Reappraisal Success for Depression and Anxiety Symptoms

Subscales of alexithymia show unique pathways through reappraisal and suppression to anxiety, depression and stress

The goal of this work was to explore associations of constituent factors of alexithymia on mental health and potential mediating effects of emotion regulation strategies, specifically suppression and reappraisal. Data were collected through the crowd-sourcing platform Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTURK). Three hundred seventy-seven individuals completed questionnaires related to distress (Depression Anxiety Stress Scales [DASS]), emotion regulation (Emotion Regulation Questionnaire [ERQ]) and Alexithymia (Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire [BVAQ]). Three mediation models were constructed for depression, anxiety and stress, with BVAQ subscales (verbalizing, identifying, emotionalizing, fantasizing, and analyzing) as predictors and ERQ subscales (suppression and reappraisal) as mediators. Results indicated 37.3 % variance in depression, 25.2 % variance in anxiety, and 35.3 % variance in stress was explained by each model. Direct associations revealed emotionalizing and fantasizing were negatively associated with depression, anxiety, and stress, while verbalizing was additionally associated with depression, identifying was additionally associated with anxiety, and all four BVAQ subscales were associated with stress. BVAQ subscales demonstrated negative associations with reappraisal and positive associations with suppression that mediated anxiety and depression. However, suppression did not mediate relationships between BVAQ subscales with stress. Findings support the importance of examining multiple factors of alexithymia and associations with emotion regulation strategies and distress.

'Struggling to appear normal': a moderated mediational analysis of empathy and camouflaging in the association between autistic traits and depressive symptoms

Background

Camouflaging or camouflaging autistic traits-strategies that hide social impairments to match societal norms-has been linked to empathy and depressive symptoms in autism research. Much epidemiological evidence has further revealed that characteristics of autism and autistic traits are distributed continuously throughout the general population. Nonetheless, the relationship between these variables in the Chinese general population is unclear.

Method

The present study aimed to elucidate the relationships between autistic traits, empathy, camouflaging, and depressive symptoms in a subclinical sample of 1215 Chinese university students of ages 18-27, using self-report assessments.

Results

Correlational analysis revealed that autistic traits, camouflaging, and depressive symptoms were significantly intercorrelated. Empathy was significantly correlated with autistic traits and camouflaging. Mediation analysis revealed that camouflaging mediated the positive link between autistic traits and depressive symptoms. Moderated mediation analysis further indicated that the first stage mediated path (autistic traits → camouflaging) was weaker for students with lower levels of empathy.

Conclusions

The results suggest that camouflaging is a key contributor in the positive association between autistic traits and depressive symptoms, and that empathy help stimulate the development and maintenance of camouflaging.

Autistic traits are linked with school adjustment among Chinese college students: the chain-mediating effects of emotion regulation and friendships

Numerous emerging adults are inclined to go to college, but the different life and learning environment of college can be a challenge, particularly those with autistic traits such as poor social skills, poor communication skills, and so on. Few studies have explored the mechanism underlying the association between autistic traits and school adjustment in college students. This study sheds light on this topic. A sample of 1,381 Chinese college students completed surveys about autistic traits, school adjustment, emotion regulation, and friendships. The results showed that there were significant correlations between autistic traits, emotion regulation, friendships, and school adjustment. Emotion regulation and friendships were found to play a chain-mediating role in the association between autistic traits and school adjustment. The results indicate that to help college students to better adapt to school life, it is critical to pay attention to their autistic traits, emotion regulation ability, and friendships.

Anxiety Sensitivity Domains are Differently Affected by Social and Non-social Autistic Traits

Anxiety sensitivity (AS) is implicated in the development and maintenance of several psychopathological conditions. Non-clinical individuals with high autistic traits may develop anxiety disorders and depressive symptoms. Here, we investigated the relationships of autistic traits with AS dimensions and depression, considering sex. We referred to the two-factor model of the autism spectrum quotient to distinguish social and non-social autistic traits and assessed 345 university students on AS and depression scales. Results showed that only social autistic traits predicted general AS and anxiety-related concerns regarding social and cognitive domains. The present results emphasize the need of assessing multiple domains of anxiety in individuals on the autistic spectrum, differentiating social and non-social traits.