ArticleAutism in adulthood2025
Understanding Camouflaging, Stigma, and Mental Health for Autistic People in Japan.
Article in Autism in adulthood, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 2 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
- Camouflaging and autism: Conceptualisation and methodological issues.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2026Review
- PTSD Symptoms Are Associated with a Greater Use of Social Camouflaging Strategies in an Eating Disorder Sample with Elevated Autistic Traits.Brain sciences · 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
- A narrative review of stigma and masking in ADHD: insights from English-language research and the Japanese cultural context.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Review
- Quality of life outcomes associated with stigma in autistic adults and their families: a systematic review.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Review
- Contextual factors influencing neuro-affirming practice: Identifying what helps or hinders implementation in health and social care.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2025Article
- The impact of camouflaging autistic traits on psychological and physiological stress: a co-twin control study.Molecular autism · 2025Article
- '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
- Burden and inequality of autism spectrum disorders in global, East asian, and Southeast Asian regions, 1990-2021: result from the global burden of disease study 2021.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Self-reported masking in sexual minority and heterosexual autistic adults.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2025Article
- Exploring the construct validity of the Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire: A factor analytic study.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2025Article
- What We Know and Do Not Know About Camouflaging, Impression Management, and Mental Health and Wellbeing in Autistic People.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2025Review
- The association between social camouflage and mental health among autistic people in Japan and the UK: a cross-cultural study.Molecular autism · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Camouflaging refers to behaviors in which autistic individuals mask their autistic characteristics and "pass" as non-autistic people. It is postulated that camouflaging is a response to stigma, and preliminary evidence supports this hypothesis. However, research on this topic outside of Western countries is limited. This study replicated and extended previous work in the West that examined the relationships between camouflaging, stigma, and mental health of autistic adults, with a Japanese sample. Methods: Two-hundred eighty-seven autistic people living in Japan (146 men, 120 women, 14 nonbinary, 5 other gender identities, 2 preferred not to say; mean age = 37.5 years, standard deviation = 9.8 years) completed an online survey on camouflaging, perceived stigma, coping strategies for stigma, mental well-being, generalized anxiety, social anxiety, and depression. We used hierarchical multiple regression analyses to investigate the relationships between camouflaging and stigma and coping strategies for stigma. Mediation analyses were also employed to examine whether camouflaging mediated the relationships between stigma and autistic people's mental health. Results: Replicating previous work, we found that higher camouflaging was associated with higher perceived stigma. Both coping strategies of hiding/denying and valuing/embracing stigmatized characteristics were positively related to camouflaging. Camouflaging mediated the association of stigma with depression, generalized anxiety, and social anxiety (but not well-being). Conclusions: Our findings support the hypothesis that camouflaging is closely related to autism-related stigma and can influence the impact of stigma on mental health. More work around social outreach and addressing autism-related stigma would be beneficial to reduce the negative role of camouflaging.
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