Cognitive Flexibility Mediates the Associations Between Perceived Stress, Social Camouflaging and Mental Health Challenges in Autistic Adults

IF 5.6 2区 医学 Q1 BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
Autism Research Pub Date : 2025-06-03 DOI:10.1002/aur.70061
Matthew J. Hollocks, Goldie A. McQuaid, Nancy R. Lee, Gregory L. Wallace
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Abstract

Autistic people are at an elevated risk of experiencing co-occurring anxiety and depression. The contributors to this are likely multifaceted and complex and remain poorly understood. Cognitive flexibility, social camouflaging, and perceived stress provide useful indices of the interacting neurocognitive, behavioral, and environmental factors that have been associated with anxiety and depression in autistic individuals. Here, we test if cognitive flexibility, as the factor most closely related to individual differences in thinking styles, mediates the relationships between social camouflaging, perceived stress, and anxiety/depression. This study included 806 autistic individuals aged between 18 and 83 years (Mean age = 40.2), recruited through the Research Match service of the Simons Powering Autism Research (SPARK) participant registry. Participants completed an online battery of questionnaires measuring cognitive and social flexibility, social camouflaging, perceived stress, anxiety, and depression. Parallel mediation analyses were used to test the mediating effect of cognitive and social flexibility. Across separate parallel mediation analyses, cognitive flexibility was found to significantly mediate the relationships between both social camouflaging and perceived stress with anxiety and depression. This was contrasted with social flexibility, which showed a lower magnitude mediating effect for perceived stress and no mediating effect of social camouflaging. Cognitive flexibility plays an important mediating role between the impact of both perceived stress and social camouflaging on greater symptoms of both anxiety and depression in autistic adults.

Abstract Image

认知灵活性在自闭症成人感知压力、社会伪装和心理健康挑战之间起中介作用。
自闭症患者同时出现焦虑和抑郁的风险较高。造成这一现象的因素可能是多方面的、复杂的,而且人们对其了解甚少。认知灵活性、社会伪装和感知压力提供了与自闭症患者焦虑和抑郁相关的神经认知、行为和环境因素相互作用的有用指标。在这里,我们测试了认知灵活性,作为与个体思维方式差异最密切相关的因素,是否介导了社会伪装、感知压力和焦虑/抑郁之间的关系。本研究包括806名年龄在18至83岁之间(平均年龄= 40.2岁)的自闭症患者,他们是通过Simons Powering Autism Research (SPARK)参与者注册中心的研究匹配服务招募的。参与者完成了一系列在线调查问卷,测量认知和社会灵活性、社会伪装、感知压力、焦虑和抑郁。采用平行中介分析对认知灵活性和社会灵活性的中介作用进行检验。在独立的平行中介分析中,发现认知灵活性在社会伪装和感知压力与焦虑和抑郁之间的关系中具有显著的中介作用。社会灵活性对感知压力的中介作用较低,而社会伪装对感知压力没有中介作用。认知灵活性在感知压力和社会伪装对自闭症成人焦虑和抑郁症状的影响之间起着重要的中介作用。
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来源期刊
Autism Research
Autism Research 医学-行为科学
CiteScore
8.00
自引率
8.50%
发文量
187
审稿时长
>12 weeks
期刊介绍: AUTISM RESEARCH will cover the developmental disorders known as Pervasive Developmental Disorders (or autism spectrum disorders – ASDs). The Journal focuses on basic genetic, neurobiological and psychological mechanisms and how these influence developmental processes in ASDs.
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