Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), including those who otherwise require less support, face severe difficulties in everyday social interactions. Research in this area has primarily focused on identifying the cognitive and neurological differences that contribute to these social impairments, but social interaction by definition involves more than one person and social difficulties may arise not just from people with ASD themselves, but also from the perceptions, judgments, and social decisions made by those around them. Here, across three studies, we find that first impressions of individuals with ASD made from thin slices of real-world social behavior by typically-developing observers are not only far less favorable across a range of trait judgments compared to controls, but also are associated with reduced intentions to pursue social interaction. These patterns are remarkably robust, occur within seconds, do not change with increased exposure, and persist across both child and adult age groups. However, these biases disappear when impressions are based on conversational content lacking audio-visual cues, suggesting that style, not substance, drives negative impressions of ASD. Collectively, these findings advocate for a broader perspective of social difficulties in ASD that considers both the individual’s impairments and the biases of potential social partners.
They're acting like weirdo R*ddit dweebs lol. Autism mostly makes me vocal stim at 3 in the morning and have expansive standard operating procedures on something as mundane as microwaving a burrito. My crappy social skills is more about me being the weird kid going through home and school trauma and poorly equipped with the means to navigate through social environments than anything about autism in general. I guess I have that thing where I hate eye contact, but that's honestly shitty Western social customs since plenty of cultures think Westerners staring at each other's eyes is creepy unhinged shit.
I always disliked having poor social skills or being socially ostracized to be centered within discussions about autism. Plenty of NTs have trash social skills, and plenty of NDs, even people with autism, have good social skills. I don't really see the difference between an NT with shitty social skills and an autist with shitty social skills. They'll both be unfunny, give creepy vibes, don't understand how to navigate their bodies in social spaces, not understand jokes, not know how to start or continue a conversation, and so on. Like, just because people were autism are incapable of having good social skills (I don't agree with this characterization, but for the sake of argument let's accept it) doesn't mean that NTs are somehow naturally born with good social skills. I'm sorry, but I don't have the ability to see someone with poor social skills and go, "You can tell that they don't have autism but is just an NT with poor social skills." Must be the autism in me.
And don't even get me started at, "Autism is like a truth serum man, so we can't lie unlike the duplicitous en-tee." Get the fuck over yourself. I can see that autism apparently doesn't stop them from entertaining self-delusions about the alleged moral superiority of autists over NTs (and the rest of NDs apparently). Autists are the master race, NTs are untermenschen, and allist NDs fit in some intermediate tier within this fucked up hierarchy where they are better than the NT cattle but nowhere near as good the autist ubermensch.
I'm glad we're moving past "autism is about having a persecution complex against shitty NT and NDs-who-don't-have-autism-that-we'll-pretend-are-NTs-to-push-a-narrative bullies" and towards "autism is about being a trans furry with cute plushies."