What Contributes to Stigma Towards Autistic University Students and Students with Other Diagnoses?

Participants were university students from two campuses, and they were only a small percentage of the undergraduate populations at those universities, so the results may not represent the general population. The study did not run power analyses before data collection, and the authors note that the samples are smaller than many general population stigma studies. Many analyses were conducted, and the authors used an alpha level of .001 to reduce false positives, which may have made smaller effects harder to detect. The study measured self-reported attitudes, not observed discriminatory behavior or patient outcomes. The response options for the social distance scales differed from past research, which may have reduced comparisons with earlier studies and made country differences harder to detect. The autism knowledge measure had lower internal consistency than the authors wanted, and future measures were needed. The vignettes were revised by authors, with one co-author identifying with several conditions, but not by diverse people representing every condition.

Do not read this as evidence that autism stigma is low or that disclosure always reduces stigma. Autism was less stigmatized than psychopathy and schizophrenia, but disruptive autism behaviors were more stigmatized than withdrawn autism behaviors, and labels did not reduce stigma for every condition.