ArticleMolecular autism2024
The association between social camouflage and mental health among autistic people in Japan and the UK: a cross-cultural study.
Article in Molecular autism, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Autistic Traits and Camouflaging: A Meta-Analysis.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2026Pooled it
- The relationship between autistic camouflaging and mental health: a scoping review.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- Prevalence of children's mental health disorders and implications in pharmacotherapy: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Postgraduate medicine · 2025Pooled it
- A meta-analytic review of quantification methods for camouflaging behaviors in autistic and neurotypical individuals.Scientific reports · 2025Pooled it
- Psychological and Emotional Well-being of Autistic Individuals with an Immigrant Background: Exploring Strengths and Challenges Through a Mixed-methods Systematic Review.Journal of immigrant and minority health · 2026Review
- Untangling Sex and Gender Differences in Impression Management and Associated Autism Features in French Autistic Adults.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2026Article
- Depression in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Neurobiological Convergence and Emerging Therapeutic Strategies.Biology · 2026Review
- Camouflaging and autism: Conceptualisation and methodological issues.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2026Review
- A novel context-discrepancy assessment of impression management facets in autistic and non-autistic adults: an initial validation.Molecular autism · 2026Article
- The impact of autism on the relations between social anxiety, camouflaging, and depression in Taiwanese adolescents.Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health · 2026Article
- Understanding autistic identity contingencies: The chain mediation effect of autism acceptance and loneliness in ableist microaggressions and social camouflage.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2026Article
- Reclaiming selfhood: towards a conceptualisation of the autistic unmasking process.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- A narrative review of stigma and masking in ADHD: insights from English-language research and the Japanese cultural context.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Review
- 'I don't think they understand the reality of autism': The lived experiences of autistic adults in Japan.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2025Article
- Autism traits and mental well-being: the mediating role of social camouflaging and the moderating role of social exclusion and public stigma.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- The Relationship Between Camouflaging and Lifetime Depression Among Adult Autistic Males and Females.Brain sciences · 2025Article
- Exploring the construct validity of the Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire: A factor analytic study.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2025Article
- Knowledge mapping of autistic traits: a visual analysis via CiteSpace.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Review
- Camouflaging, internalized stigma, and mental health in the general population.The International journal of social psychiatry · 2024Article
- Understanding early maladaptive schemas in autistic and ADHD individuals: exploring the impact, changing the narrative, and schema therapy considerations.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors.
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Abstract
backgroundTo examine the relationship between social camouflage and mental health in Japanese autistic adults and make an international comparison with a sample from the UK.
methodsThis study analysed secondary data of participants with a self-reported diagnosis of autism from Japan (N = 210; 123 men and 87 women) and the UK (N = 305; 181 women, 104, men, and 18 nonbinary). The relationships between the quadratic term of the Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire and mental health scales, including depression and anxiety, were assessed.
resultsThe UK sample showed linear relationships, whereas the Japanese sample showed significant nonlinear relationships. The quadratic terms of the Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire slightly explained generalised anxiety (β = .168, p = .007), depression (β = .121, p = .045), and well-being (β = - .127, p = .028). However, they did not explain the association between social anxiety and the Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire. LIMITATIONS: Participants had self-reported diagnoses, and while the autism-spectrum quotient provides a cut-off value for screening, it does not enable confirming diagnoses. Mean scores of the Japanese version of the Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire were lower as compared to the original CAT-Q, which implies that the social camouflage strategy types used by autistic people in Japan and the UK could differ. The cross-sectional design limits causal inferences.
conclusionIn the UK, more social camouflage was associated with poorer mental health scores, whereas too little or too much social camouflage was associated with a low mental health score in Japan. The Japanese population is seemingly less aware of and educated on autistic characteristics and considers 'average' behaviour a good thing. This could influence Japanese autistic people's social camouflage use, differing from that of autistic people in the UK. The differences in the relationship between social camouflage and mental health between Japan and the UK could be associated with national-level divergence regarding the culture of autism.
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Registered trials
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