Page 19 - Demo

1General introduction17The need to form meaningful relationships with others is an integral part of human nature (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Social interactions - everyday instances reflecting this need %u2013 are known to play an important role in determining an individual%u2019s well-being and their life satisfaction (Diener et al., 2018; Sun et al., 2020). In interactions, people share their emotional and mental states, both verbally and non-verbally, with others. An alignment to each other facilitates mutual understanding, and allows for supporting each other in regulating imbalanced emotional states or in updating inaccurate beliefs. The ability to %u201ctune in%u201d to another person is an important resource in daily social functioning, which is described to be %u201cimpaired%u201d 1 in the DSM-V diagnostic criteria of both Social Anxiety Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Alterations in experiences and behaviour, similar to those described in individuals with a diagnosis of autism or social anxiety, can also be observed in individuals without a diagnosis (see Box 1 for a description of the two conditions and the association with trait levels). The present dissertation therefore includes research in both non-diagnosed individuals with varying autistic trait levels and social anxiety trait levels, and individuals with a diagnosis of either Social Anxiety Disorder (referred to as %u201cindividuals with social anxiety%u201d) or Autism Spectrum Disorder (referred to as %u201cindividuals on the autism spectrum%u201d) to approach a better understanding of potential alterations in processes which may contribute to social interaction difficulties in the two conditions.Difficulties in Social Interactions in Autism and Social AnxietyResearch on social functioning in social anxiety and autism highlights alterations in social cognition and behaviour, which are linked to a lower quality of life in the two conditions (S. Y. Kim & Bottema-Beutel, 2019; Oakley et al., 2020; Olatunji et al., 2007). For example, altered trust in social interactions has been described in both autism and social anxiety. While individuals on the autism spectrum are less influenced by another persons%u2019 looks or their prosocial behaviour in trust decisions 1 Deficit-oriented language (e.g., %u201cimpairments%u201d, %u201cDisorder%u201d) is used here in order to adhere to the clinical diagnostic criteria. Yet, I would like to highlight that I do not believe social interaction difficulties to be necessarily the result of one individual%u2019s %u201cimpairment%u201d. Following a neurodiversity perspective, individuals differ in their cognitive styles, which also reflects in interpersonal communication. This idea will be elaborated on in more detail in the discussion.