Social Camouflage in Autism: An Analysis of Decision Making

The practice of social camouflage , or the modification of one’s behaviors to be better perceived by others in one’s environment, is an old one. Recently, it has received much interest as it pertains to people on the autism spectrum. The autism literature includes explorations of how social camouflage should be defined, why it occurs (e.g., the societal pressures that give rise to it), and its impacts on quality of life and mental health. In this article we complement this work with a conceptual model focusing on reflective cognitive aspects, which provides a social analysis of how social camouflage takes place, with respect to personal costs and potential social gains. This model is informed both by autistic lived experience (M.G.) and current research findings. We hope that this model can serve as a tool to empower people on the autism spectrum when reflecting on every day social decision making and that it will spark further research to understand the details of autistic social camouflage, which can, in turn, be used to refine the model.