User:Mrwil8/Masking (personality)

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People who have attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) tend to mask themselves as a coping strategy, much like people who have autism will also mask, or camouflage, their symptoms in many social interactions.

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Autism and ADHD share many similarities in their symptoms and social coping mechanisms, one of these coping mechanisms being masking, or camouflaging, which is the unconscious ritual where as certain symptoms of ADHD, such as stimming and impulsivity, will be suppressed in order to fit in to society's standards. Due to the similarities in social challenges that people with ADHD and Autism face, a study was conducted in order to see which population group tends to mask more, and though both communities do mask, it seems people with ADHD tend to mask less in public than those with autism.

Causes[edit]
See also: Performativity

The social drivers of masking include social discrimination, cultural dominance, and violence. Elizabeth Radulski argues that masking is a cultural performance within Judith Butler's concept of performativity that helps individuals bypass cultural and structural barriers.

Situational contexts[edit]
The causes of masking are highly contextual and situational. Masking may disguise emotions considered socially inappropriate within a situational context, such as anger, jealousy, or rage. Individuals may mask in certain social situations, such as job interviews or dates, or around people of different cultures, identities, or ethnicities. Since different social situations require different performances, individuals often switch masks and exhibit different masking behaviors in different contexts. Code-switching, although associated more with linguistics, also refers to the process of changing one's masking behavior around different cultures in social and cultural anthropology. Contextual factors including relationships with one's conversation partner, social capital (class) differences, location, and social setting are all reasons why an individual would express, suppress, or mask an emotion.

There is a gendered disparity in masking behavior; studies show women mask negative emotions to a greater extent than men. According to psychologist Teresa Davis, this may be due to the greater social expectation for conformity placed on female gender roles, causing women to develop the skill to a greater extent than men during childhood socialization.

Autistic masking[edit]
Main article: Autistic masking

Autistic masking, also referred to as camouflaging, is the conscious or subconscious suppression of autistic behaviors or the compensation of difficulties in social interaction by autistic people with the goal of being perceived as neurotypical. It is a learned coping strategy.

Typical examples of autistic masking include the suppression of stimming and meltdowns, a common reaction to sensory overload. To compensate difficulties in social interaction with neurotypical peers, autistic people might maintain eye contact despite discomfort, use rehearsed conversational scripts, or mirror the body language and tone of others.

Masking requires an exceptional effort. It is linked with adverse mental health outcomes such as stress, autistic burnout, anxiety and other psychological disorders, loss of identity, and suicidality. Some studies find that compensation strategies are seen as contributing to leading a successful and satisfactory life.

Consequences[edit]
Little is known about the effects of masking one's negative emotions. In the workplace, masking leads to feelings of dissonance, insincerity, job dissatisfaction, emotional and physical exhaustion, and self-reported health problems. Some have also reported experiencing somatic symptoms and harmful physiological and cognitive effects as a consequence. ''Masking also brings in reports of loneliness, due to the fact that many are having to suppress their identity to socially fit in, unable to form real connections because they can only be accepted when they conform to society's standards. This interrelates with reports stating that they have lost their true identity as an autistic individual, feeling as if they only play a role for the majority of their lives.''

References:

https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/102209993/costs-camouflaging-autism-libre.pdf?1684080803=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DThe_costs_of_camouflaging_autism.pdf&Expires=1719120454&Signature=U50Cf3TUgJUgzTgpJiQ8B1ixvKDMXypaRtML8sAOBnpLHWZo~27uWpp8rN-eJZCsPqPZLnYRq2RhpOcXkngeHCqORPyFzOKes33eM4apLLrpcyeOt4DVX7XqDuaFGcpoiOtTn08ZSpzRJpQeWpPtJQ1HEfJSZ36UFmplJCAqLBldRX6hHtOGpqd47mZZ1~LLlv3OcaiYKFvXcIl3K9M~7PkTJqKgT4s-iiOQsLvr5oHKQWNj~93NtfnjALxVNiSpexfoWPhTvizoqqhQlprFzaUbS0e82LhT7dgKbBC~IvlnQKpGKL49nSsp02yHW1PlDh1yHWvwphBLQJwz~rp~-g__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA

Summary: (Will be removed/edited later! Last Edit: Jun 22, 2024)


 * As stated above, I took both the instructor and Raniya's feedback to copy and paste from the article itself and add/tweak various information. After reading through M. Alex's review, I also decided I may need to do further research and hash out better explanations of the differences between ADHD and Autsim masking. I need to find more in depth articles and researches on the differences, many of the information I know came from previous courses, so I am looking into finding those old textbooks and powerpoints, and maybe considering reaching out to an instructor.
 * I wanted to separate myself from hashing out the differences between ADHD/Autism masking for a little bit, and work on just adding bits of new information - Just to get the hang of the situation now that I have a better insight on what to do. The reference isn't embedded in the proper way, but I will fix this later, just wanting this report to be able to access due to Akeiah's review where she said there were some issues accessing those articles, so I decided this will do for now as I go back and re-read the instructions on how to properly link a reference to make sure I have it correct.