Rejection sensitivity as a mechanism for social disability in autism
Research on social disability in autism has been dominated by deficit models proposing autistic people lack empathy (Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004) and social motivation (Chevallier et al., 2012). However, this research ignores the social mechanisms which contribute to social interaction difficulties in autism. For instance, autistic people are rated less favourably by non-autistic others based on brief samples of behaviour (Alkhaldi et al., 2019) and experience higher levels of peer rejection (Wood & Gadow, 2010).
One way that negative perceptions/peer rejection could result in poor social outcomes for autistic people is via rejection sensitivity (RS). The RS model (Downey & Feldman, 1996) proposes that repeated experiences of rejection lead to an expectation of, and an attentional bias to, cues of rejection, resulting in increased social anxiety, social withdrawal and feelings of loneliness. Support for this model has been found in typically developing individuals (London et al., 2007), and those with higher autistic traits (but not meeting clinical criteria for autism; Keenan et al., 2018). However, it is currently not known whether this model could also account for social differences and mental health difficulties in clinically diagnosed autistic people.
Thus, the proposed PhD aims to investigate rejection sensitivity in autistic people by: 1) Exploring the socio-cultural factors that may lead to rejection sensitivity and 2) Investigating the link between rejection sensitivity and social outcomes and cognition in autistic people.