Testing the social motivation theory of autism: the role of co-occurring anxiety

作者：Eloise Bagg, Hannah Pickard, Manting Tan, Tim J. Smith, Emily Simonoff, Andrew Pickles, Virginia Carter Leno, Rachael Bedford

摘要原文：Background

The Social Motivation Theory proposes that social reward processing differences underlie autism. However, low social motivation has also been linked to higher anxiety. Given the co-occurrence between autism and anxiety, it is possible that anxiety drives the association between social motivation and autistic characteristics. This study tests the mechanisms underlying the association between social motivation and autistic traits.

Methods

Participants were 165 adolescents (71 male), aged 10–16 years, from the Mapping profiles of cognition, motivation and attention in childhood (C-MAPS) study, enriched for autistic traits (70 participants with an autism diagnosis, 37 male). Participants completed a battery of online experimental tasks, including a Choose-a-Movie social motivation task and social cognition measures (theory of mind; emotion recognition), alongside parent-reported child anxiety and autistic traits.

Results

Higher social motivation was significantly associated with lower autistic traits (β = −.26, p < .001). Controlling for social cognition did not change the association between social motivation and autistic traits. Controlling for anxiety did significantly reduce the strength of the association (unstandardized coefficient change: p = .003), although social motivation remained associated with autistic traits (β = −.16, p = .004). Post hoc analyses demonstrated differential sex-effects: The association between social motivation and autistic traits was significant only in the females (β = −.38, p < .001), as was the attenuation by anxiety (unstandardized coefficient change: p < .001).

Conclusions

The association between social motivation and autistic traits could be partially attributed to co-occurring anxiety. Sex-specific effects found in females may be due to environmental factors such as increased social demands in adolescent female relationships. Results are consistent with self-report by autistic individuals who do not identify as having reduced social motivation.

摘要翻译：

背景

社会动机理论认为，社会奖励处理差异是自闭症的根源。然而，较低的社交动机也与较高的焦虑有关。鉴于自闭症和焦虑之间的共存，焦虑可能会驱动社会动机和自闭症特征之间的关联。这项研究测试了社会动机与自闭症特征之间关联的潜在机制。

方法

参与者为 165 名青少年（71 名男性），年龄 10-16 岁，来自儿童认知、动机和注意力映射概况 (C-MAPS)研究，丰富了自闭症特征（70 名被诊断为自闭症的参与者，37 名男性）。参与者完成了一系列在线实验任务，包括选择电影的社会动机任务和社会认知测量（心智理论；情绪识别），以及家长报告的儿童焦虑和自闭症特征。

结果

较高的社交动机与较低的自闭症特征显着相关（β  = -.26，p  < .001）。控制社会认知并没有改变社会动机和自闭症特征之间的关联。控制焦虑确实显着降低了关联强度（非标准化系数变化：p  = .003），尽管社交动机仍然与自闭症特征相关（β  = -.16，p  = .004）。事后分析证明了不同的性别影响：社会动机和自闭症特征之间的关联仅在女性中显着（β  = -.38，p  < .001），焦虑的衰减也是如此（非标准化系数变化：p  < .001）。 001）。

结论

社会动机和自闭症特征之间的关联可能部分归因于同时发生的焦虑。在女性中发现的性别特异性影响可能是由于环境因素造成的，例如青少年女性关系中社会需求的增加。结果与自闭症患者的自我报告一致，他们并不认为社交动机降低。