Reading the Research: Psychological Flexibility

Welcome back to Reading the Research, where I trawl the Internet to find noteworthy research on autism and related subjects, then discuss it in brief with bits from my own life, research, and observations.

Today's article ties into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual criteria for autism.  More precisely, I think it makes a sound argument that rigidity isn't specifically an autistic trait.  For reference, the criterion I'm referring to is this:

B. Restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities, as manifested by at least two of the following, currently or by history (examples are illustrative, not exhaustive; see text): 

1. Stereotyped or repetitive motor movements, use of objects, or speech (e.g., simple motor stereotypies, lining up toys or flipping objects, echolalia, idiosyncratic phrases).

2. Insistence on sameness, inflexible adherence to routines, or ritualized patterns or verbal nonverbal behavior (e.g., extreme distress at small changes, difficulties with transitions, rigid thinking patterns, greeting rituals, need to take same route or eat food every day).

With this in mind...  The article talks about psychological flexibility.  Three levels, high, medium, and low.  These levels of flexibility were measured alongside psychological distress.  It was found that people suffering high levels of psychological distress tended to have low levels of psychological flexibility, while people with low levels of distress tended to have high levels of flexibility.  

So, what causes psychological distress?  It's actually all kinds of things: difficulty finding a job or handling the demands of a job, a death or tragedy in your social circles, rejection from people in your social circles, not living up to the expectations you or other people place on you, the stress of moving from one home to another, or the slog of managing chronic pain or other conditions that wear away at a person.  All these and more can cause distress, and the more things a person is dealing with at a time, the higher their distress level is.  

Some quick examples from people I've literally met to make these ideas more clear:

• A male student in a Christian college recognizes, after a presentation on the sexuality spectrum, that those nagging feelings he's been trying to ignore since age 12 are the clear signs that he's gay.  His community and parents will not approve. 
• A single mother finds that her job in retail (one of two jobs she holds) is upping her hours, and she does not have a choice about this change.  The additional hours will make it so that she barely sees her kids each day.  Her family is important to her, and she cherishes the time she spends with her kids.  But she needs the job to pay for housing, food, and medical expenses.  She must decide whether to quit the retail job and search for another job so she can still spend time with her kids, or sacrifice even more of her family-time in exchange for security.  
• An autistic child goes to an integrated school every day and tries to make friends with their peers.  They do not succeed, over and over.  The other children begin to mock the autistic person's eccentricities and refuse to be friends with them.  The teachers do not intervene.  The child feels lonely and despairing, and begins to withdraw into themself.  The child's parents, seeing their lack of effort, encourage them to try harder.

The first example is societal and personal rejection.  Gay and other LGBTQIA+ people often suffer this kind of rejection, and must decide whether they want to hide this part of their personality, or show it and accept the rejection that comes with it.  

The second example is a matter of others' expectations and existing job demands.  As big companies continue to see how far they can squeeze their employees, many people, especially minorities, have to make decisions like these.  

The third example is a very common one for autistic children, and is an example of mismatched expectations as well as personal and societal rejection.  

I would argue that existing as an autistic person in this world, a world that commonly doesn't accept, understand, or appreciate autistic people, is a source of psychological distress.  Not because it's inherent to autism, but because of how people tend to react to that autism, and treat people with autism overall.  

The end result of this raised amount of psychological distress might well be the rigidity ascribed to us in the diagnostic criteria.  I think it's a reasonable assumption, anyway.  If accurate, it also makes the case that if the psychological distress in an autistic person can be reduced, their flexibility will increase.  Which I think we can all agree is a good thing.

(Pst! If you like seeing the latest autism-relevant research, visit my Twitter, which has links and brief comments on studies that were interesting, but didn't get a whole Reading the Research article about them.)