Autism × Social Psychology: A Collaboration Whose Time Has Come

ABSTRACT Social difficulties have been a cardinal feature of autism dating back to the earliest descriptions of the condition. The concept of autism has evolved over the past decades, but it has never lost its social character. In fact, autism may be more “social” now than it has been before, considering that it is increasingly recognized as a social identity, as well as a clinical diagnosis. Even though social models of autism are gaining prominence, social psychological research has largely neglected this topic. Accordingly, we believe that the time has come for social psychologists to focus more on the experiences of autistic people, and for autism researchers to focus more on social psychological principles and approaches. To encourage more integrative approaches, we highlight exemplars of social psychology studies of autism, while also offering directions for future research designed to integrate autism with social psychology and vice versa. We specifically focus on (1) personality traits and individual differences, (2) social cognition and theory of mind, and (3) close relationships and group processes, as these are three of the most popular areas of interest in social psychology. The overarching aim of this paper is to suggest that studying autism through the lens of social psychology could be mutually beneficial to autism researchers and social psychologists alike. Indeed, this kind of integrative approach has the potential to increase our understanding of important social‐behavioral processes, as well as the power to advance social models that seek to recharacterize autism as a part of naturally occurring human variation.