A Cross-Cultural Study of Self- and Other-Descriptions By Individuals with ASD in New Delhi, India and Los Angeles, USA

Background:

Most research on ASD to date has focused on the immediate social skills, rather than the broader cultural skills, of individuals with ASD. Cross-cultural research has shown that cognitive and emotional patterns may differ significantly across cultural contexts. For example, previous research has shown that when describing themselves, Caucasian-Americans use more abstract, decontextualized descriptions than Indians from Bhubhaneshwar (Shweder and Bourne, 1984), in line with a theory of independent (vs. interdependent) self-concepts (Markus and Kitayama, 1991). It is unclear whether individuals with ASD, who have impairments in self- and other-understanding, will acquire the relevant cultural patterns regarding self- and other-concepts; or whether their social impairments will extend to broader cultural impairments. Here we present the first test, to our knowledge, of self- and other-concepts in a cross-cultural sample of individuals with ASD in Los Angeles, USA, and New Delhi, India.

Objectives:

To determine whether self-descriptions by Indians with ASD are more interdependent (i.e., more concrete and contextualized) than those of Americans with ASD, as would be predicted from their cultural context (Shweder and Bourne, 1984); and whether both groups have more physical than psychological descriptions, as would be predicted from their ASD diagnosis (Brezis et al., unpublished).

Methods:

Twelve high-functioning adults with ASD (2 females; M=25.1) were interviewed in New Delhi; data were compared with that of 35 high-functioning youth with ASD (6 females; M=12.4) interviewed in Los Angeles. Participants were asked to describe themselves in as many ways possible, starting with “I am…”; and then to describe their favorite fictional character. Transcripts were parsed into phrases and coded for whether the description was (a) physical or psychological; (b) abstract or concrete; (c) contextualized or decontextualized.

Results:

When describing themselves, Indian individuals with ASD made significantly more concrete (t(40)=2.47, p=.02) and more contextualized descriptions (t(40)=4.71, p<.0001) than American individuals with ASD; but groups did not differ in their degree of physical (vs. psychological) descriptions (t(40)=1.45, p=.15).

By contrast, when describing their favorite fictional character, groups did not differ on any coded measure of description (physicality, t(38)=.17, p=.87; abstractness, t(38)=.02, p=.98; contextualization, t(38)=1.94, p=.06).

Conclusions:

Our findings confirm the hypothesis that individuals with ASD are sensitive to their cultural contexts, with Indian individuals with ASD describing themselves in more concrete and contextualized ways than American individuals with ASD. Both groups have a similar tendency to provide more physical than psychological descriptions; probably due to their ASD characteristics, rather than their cultural backgrounds. Importantly, there were no cross-cultural differences in descriptions of fictional characters, which may be due to the fact that fictional characters are embedded within a pre-structured narrative, which is less affected by cognitive style. Our study is limited by a relatively small ASD sample and no control group in New Delhi, and no proper matching on age and IQ with the ASD group from Los Angeles. Nevertheless, our results present a first step towards a better understanding of the subtle ways in which ASD varies cross-culturally, and the cultural skills that individuals with ASD do acquire.