Psychology Commons^™

Fear Of Negative Evaluation In Autism Spectrum Disorders, Catie Nielson, Mikle South

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are characterized by social communication deficits and restricted repetitive behaviors. Studies have found co­‐morbidity of ASD and social anxiety disorder (SAD), but it is unclear how the anxiety experienced in ASD is socially mediated (White, Oswald, Ollendick and Scahill; 2009). In this study, we measured psychophysiological reactivity during socially stressful (performance­‐evaluated) trials compared to unevaluated trials. We aimed to understand how anxiety in people with ASD is mediated by fear of negative social evaluation, a key factor in SAD. We hypothesized that the ASD group would show elevated stress during evaluation, whether the task was hard …