Videos by Catherine Caldwell-Harris
I'm a professor at Boston University where I'll be presenting some research on Autistic Women at ... more I'm a professor at Boston University where I'll be presenting some research on Autistic Women at a BU-specific symposium called Research on Tap. The theme is Flourishing in Diverse Populations and Contexts. This lightening talk is supposed to be 4 minutes. For your interest is my initial practice attempt, clocking in at 9 minutes. Feedback welcome.
This is a very preliminary practice talk, I mainly just wanted to share my work and let the long version get some air time. I'll post the 4 minute version once I refine it down... Comments welcome of course.
A couple things I already know to change are:
I won't mention high-functioning (although 10 years ago people used that label). I won't talk about "mental functioning of people that were close to the human standard model" etc.
My 11 year old son coming in and out of my room -- really unnerved me. I thought he was at the neighbor's house so I didn't put any barricades on the door to my bedroom. 15 views
This video is the practice version of what I gave live at Boston University on Nov 3, 2021. I fe... more This video is the practice version of what I gave live at Boston University on Nov 3, 2021. I feel the real talk was a lot better than the practice version, smile. It takes a lot of practice to get really smooth. The time constraints were very tight. No more than 4 minutes. I also posted a really bad 9 minute version, complete with my 11 year old busting in. 36 views
Correlational statements grab the human meaning-making centers, resulting in causal illusions -- ... more Correlational statements grab the human meaning-making centers, resulting in causal illusions -- we intuitively infer a causal relationship when one is not necessarily present. To retreat from accepting these illusions, we need to ask: what non-causal relationships may be at work? This class-based workshop guides the viewer through examples to practice skills needed to understand relationships which are normally not explicitly discussed in psychology and social science methods classes, such as when a variable is an index (or sign-post) of a more complex set of interacting factors.
Example: Why was the presence of a dishwasher in the home of rural Turkish families in the 1990s the best statistical predictor of mothers refraining from using corporal punishment with their children? 28 views
Autism Spectrum: Strength Based Approach by Catherine Caldwell-Harris
The complexity of human organization involves social cooperation and navigating hierarchies (Henr... more The complexity of human organization involves social cooperation and navigating hierarchies (Henrich, 2015). Attaining social status is an adaptive goal for humans. High status ensures access to resources, from food to safety to social alliances (Byrne & Whiten, 1988). Even midlevel social status is adaptive in securing a networking of friends and allies. Because of this, humans in every culture attend to status cues (Maner & Case, 2016). Time is spent in childhood and throughout life how status manifests in their culture, practicing ways to attain it, and pursuing opportunities to gossip, chat, observe, and internalize the myriad aspects of social hierarchy (Dunbar, 2004; Hawley, 2014).
Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, March 4, Boston. , 2023
The social challenges of autistic people have long been attributed to deficits in their mentalizi... more The social challenges of autistic people have long been attributed to deficits in their mentalizing abilities. In the last decade, theory-of-mind has been criticized as not plausible as the central deficit underlying autism. One reason is that autistic people typically pass false-belief tasks (setting aside young children and those with intellectual disabilities; Gernsbacher & Yergeau, 2019). Autistic people can find it bewildering to be told that they lack understanding of what other people are thinking (Atherton et al., 2019). Many autistics also consider themselves to be hyper-empathetic. [Need to find a reference and more justification for this.] Other evidence against the theory-of-mind account is autistics can have high levels of communicative success and positive interactions with other autistics (Crompton, 2020) and that neurotypical (NT) individuals can fail to understand the perspective of autistics. The view that effective communication requires perspective-taking by both autistics and NTs has come to be known as the double empathy problem (Milton, 2012). Related to this, autistic people note that intense attunement and mind-reading can occur between autistic friends. Even when autistics are paired with an NT friend, communication and attunement can be high.
Yet autistic sociality is different. Our purpose here is to suggest one type of difference that has received little attention: lack of interest in status and hierarchy. During social interaction, autistics are less concerned, and NTs more concerned, with successfully navigating social hierarchies, as occurs when meeting new people or making small talk at a party. NTs are more concerned with the social status and social usefulness of other people. Autistics, in contrast, are more accepting of diverse presentations in others, and more egalitarian in their social attitudes. They concentrate on the usefulness of the information conveyed, rather than the strategic benefits of associating with this new person.
Background: User-led autism discussion forums provide a wealth of information about autistic live... more Background: User-led autism discussion forums provide a wealth of information about autistic lived experiences, albeit oriented toward those who regularly use computers. We contend that healthcare professionals should read autism discussion forums to gain insight, be informed, and in some cases, to correct assumptions about autistic persons' lives and possibilities. But experts may be dismissive of user-led forums, believing forums to be filled with myths, misinformation, and combative postings. The questions motivating our research were: Do online forums raise issues that are educational for clinicians and other stakeholders? Are forums useful for those who do empirical research? Method: Content analysis was conducted on 300 posts (62,000 words) from Reddit, Quora, and Wrong Planet. Forums were sampled to reflect broad topics; posts were selected sequentially from the identified forums. The authors read through posts in the Excel sheet, highlighting statements that were the main ideas of the post, to discern both broad categories of topics and more specific topics. We coded content pertinent to classic autism myths and analyzed attitudes towards myths such as 'lack emotion' and 'can't form relationships.' To document whether forum posts discuss topics that are not widely known outside of elite experts, we compared discussion content to new material about autism contained in the March 2022 DSM 5 Text revision. Results: Classic autism myths were discussed with examples of when elements of myths may be valid. Posters described cases where parents or therapists believed myths. Experts may believe autism myths due to rapid changes in diagnostic practices and due to their lack of knowledge regarding the characteristics of autistic people who have typical intellectual abilities. We conclude that forums contain highvalue information for clinicians because all concepts in the DSM 5 text revision were discussed by posters in the years before the text revision appeared. Ideas that are only slowly becoming part of the research literature are discussed at length in forums. Reading and analyzing forums is useful for both clinicians and scientists. In addition, the relative ease of forum analysis lowers the bar for entry into the research process.
Little is known about how persons with autism spectrum conditions acquire foreign languages. To... more Little is known about how persons with autism spectrum conditions acquire foreign languages. To augment the literature with the experiences of autistic persons, trained raters coded discussion forum posts for categories such as method of learning, number of languages mentioned, and outcomes of learnings. Compared to forum posts on non-autism websites, posts on autism forums were more likely to report reading and writing as strengths and listening/speaking as deficits. Autistic posters more often reported intrinsic motivation for learning, being a polyglot, and having a special interest in learning language; they were also less likely to report attaining fluency. These reported experiences provide a foundation for future quantitative research.
Eastern Psychological Association, 2022
The topics of interest are distinctive and range from psychology and science fiction to true crim... more The topics of interest are distinctive and range from psychology and science fiction to true crime and artwork. The intensity of interests in highly specific domains, including scientific domains, should be of interest to employers who want workers with relevant expertise and a capacity to learn new technical information.
Autistic women’s special interests differ from neurotypical women’s hobbies by being particularly information-rich and conducive to systemizing. A novel finding is that true crime and interest in people/celebrities allows autistic women to learn about how other people’s minds work. The intense interest in systemizing the social and psychological world may reflect autistic women’s intuitions that this is a growth area for them.
Eastern Psychological Association, 2022
Autistic people had a bimodal distribution on a foreign-language aptitude test; whereas the NTs h... more Autistic people had a bimodal distribution on a foreign-language aptitude test; whereas the NTs had a normal distribution
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 2022
Little is known about how persons with autism spectrum conditions experience the process of learn... more Little is known about how persons with autism spectrum conditions experience the process of learning foreign languages. To augment the research literature (reviewed here) with the experiences of autistic persons, online autism forums were scrutinised. Discussions pertinent to language learning were identified in English, Spanish, French and German, with 169 posts analysed. Thematic analysis revealed 8 themes. Three themes concerned ease and difficulty of learning. Reading and writing were strengths, due to their offline nature. Listening comprehension was difficult, especially with background noise. Speaking was difficult, due to demands of immediacy. Four interrelated themes could be understood as positive outcomes of autistic traits. Languages were a special interest, and many posters reported being self-taught. Posters often listed many languages but acknowledged that learning their full list was impractical. Posters reported being interested in diverse aspects of language structure, suggesting that languages were compelling because they provided an opportunity for systemising. Finally, posters discussed how autism conferred both advantages and disadvantages for language learning. Some posters discussed their engagement in terms reminiscent of polyglots and mild forms of linguistic savantism. This analysis revealed a group of curious learners whose abilities and strengths are mostly unknown to applied linguists.
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 2022
This is a more extensive list of quotes than was provided in Table 3 of my published journal arti... more This is a more extensive list of quotes than was provided in Table 3 of my published journal article, Passionate about Languages, But Listening and Speaking -- ¡Ay, Caramba! Autistic Adults Discuss Foreign Language Learning
An Explanation for Repetitive Motor Behaviors in Autism: Facilitating Inventions via Trial-and-Error Discovery
Frontiers in Psychology, 2021
Summary
Clare Harrop, a leading researcher of restricted and repetitive behaviors (RRBs), wrote w... more Summary
Clare Harrop, a leading researcher of restricted and repetitive behaviors (RRBs), wrote with her colleagues, “.as a field we do not understand what causes RRBs, and this is particularly difficult to ascertain when children are minimally verbal.” (1). The current account is a response to this request for new ideas about the cause of repetitive behaviors. Motor repetitions in autism are an alternative phenotype which has adaptive and functional consequences: fueling trial-and-error tinkering which could lead to inventions, i.e., novel, useful configurations of objects. This hypothesis is consistent with the proposed mechanism of heterochrony (11), and is complementary to other theories which take a strength-based approach to autism (8, 19). This hypothesis helps explain similarities between motor repetitions and circumscribe interests, illuminates parents' observations of their child's motor repetitions [e.g., (30)], and has heuristic value in providing ideas for therapists to introduce flexibility into the motor routines of minimally verbal children.
Background: Studies of autistic children’s writing have long focused on weaknesses in structural ... more Background: Studies of autistic children’s writing have long focused on weaknesses in structural complexity, organization and taking readers’ perspectives. In contrast, awareness is growing that writing is a strength for many autistic adults, as suggested by research on autistic memoirs and autistic college students. Less is known about how well autistic individuals write when they use language for their own purposes, such as writing a blog.
Method: We analyzed the word usage patterns of 30 self-identified autistic bloggers and 30 age and gender-matched non-autistic bloggers, assumed to be neurotypical (NT). Blog content was analyzed using qualitative methods.
Results: Compared to NT bloggers, autistic bloggers wrote in a more complex manner. Autistic bloggers often wrote about science or other abstract topics rather than discussing daily life events.
Conclusion: One subset of autistic individuals, those who write blogs, wrote in a more complex style than did typically developed peers. This may reflect autistic bloggers being an elite subset of autistic individuals, or a cognitive style that includes intellectual interests.
Special interests are frequently developed by individuals with autism spectrum disorder, expresse... more Special interests are frequently developed by individuals with autism spectrum disorder, expressed as an intense focus on specific topics. Neurotypical individuals also develop special interests, often in the form of hobbies. Although past research has focused on special interests held by children with autism spectrum disorder, little is known about their role in adulthood. The current study investigated differences in the content, number, and specificity of the special interests held by adult individuals with autism spectrum disorder and neurotypical individuals, using Internet discussion forums as a data source. Quantitative analysis of forum posts revealed significant differences between the diagnostic groups. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder reported having more interests in systemizing domains, more specific interests, and a greater number of interests overall than neurotypical individuals. Understanding special interests can lead to the development of educational and therapeutic programs that facilitate the acquirement of other important social and communication skills.
The cognitive science of religion is a new field which explains religious belief as emerging from... more The cognitive science of religion is a new field which explains religious belief as emerging from normal cognitive processes such as inferring others' mental states, agency detection and imposing patterns on noise. This paper investigates the proposal that individual differences in belief will reflect cognitive processing styles, with high functioning autism being an extreme style that will predispose towards nonbelief (atheism and agnosticism). This view was supported by content analysis of discussion forums about religion on an autism website (covering 192 unique posters), and by a survey that included 61 persons with HFA. Persons with autistic spectrum disorder were much more likely than those in our neurotypical comparison group to identify as atheist or agnostic, and, if religious, were more likely to construct their own religious belief system. Nonbelief was also higher in those who were attracted to systemizing activities, as measured by the Systemizing Quotient.
Learning and Individual Differences, 29, 98–105
Special interests have been studied in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) but not in ad... more Special interests have been studied in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) but not in adults. Using an online survey, it was found that individuals with ASD reported more intense interests in systemizable domains, relative to neurotypical adults. Self-reported systemizing preference was correlated with intensity of interest in systemizable domains both for those with ASD and for neurotypical young adults. Few gender differences were found in the neurotypical group in the expected categories of machines, technology and vehicles, where gender differences have been found in children. Gender differences in these categories did appear for the ASD group. We propose a strength-based model of special interests, with the hobbies of neurotypical forming a continuum with the special interests of ASD.
Cross-cultural Psychology by Catherine Caldwell-Harris
The Encyclopedia of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 2013
Transcultural psychiatry, Jan 1, 2006
International Journal of Intercultural …, Jan 1, 2010
Whether immigrants to the U.S. from collectivist cultures will adopt American individualist value... more Whether immigrants to the U.S. from collectivist cultures will adopt American individualist values is an important question at the intersection of theories on acculturation and individualism/collectivism. According to the assimilation hypothesis, Turkish immigrants to the U.S. should become more individualistic with increasing length of stay. Alternatively, the immigrant interdependence hypothesis proposes that the exigencies of immigration require retaining or increasing collectivist values and behaviors, especially the willingness to rely on others. Measures of individualism and collectivism were obtained from Turkish immigrants to the U.S., Turks residing in Istanbul, and residents of Boston. Bostonians and Istanbul residents differed primarily on vertical collectivism, which is the tendency to subordinate ones own goals to those of in-group authority figures. Immigrants' values did not change with increasing length of stay in the U.S., refuting the assimilation hypothesis. When immigrants were compared to non-immigrants, immigrants endorsed stronger horizontal and vertical collectivism and more desire to both give and receive, consistent with the immigrant interdependence hypothesis. However, this hypothesis was not uniformly supported. Compared to non-immigrants, immigrants reported more self-reliance with competition, and more internal locus of control, indicating a sense of agency and responsibility. Findings are consistent with the view that immigrants adjust in complex ways to their new society, and may have different temperaments than non-immigrants.
Intercultural Pragmatics, 2000
The Encyclopedia of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 2013
Reticence to express emotions verbally has long been observed in Chinese culture, but quantitativ... more Reticence to express emotions verbally has long been observed in Chinese culture, but quantitative comparisons with Western cultures are few. Explanations for emotional reticence have typically focused on the need in collectivist culture to promote group harmony, but this explanation is most applicable to negative emotions such as anger, not positive expressions such as Wo ai ni [I love you]. A survey on verbal usage of Wo ai ni was administered to university students in Beijing and Shanghai, and compared to uses of I love you by American students in the United States. Chinese respondents were not only overall more reticent than Americans in their love expressions, but differed from Americans in avoiding I love you expressions with family (especially parents). Interviews revealed that Chinese and American students, the two groups endorsed different reasons for saying Wo ai ni/I love you. The reasons Americans provided most often related to the inherent importance of saying I love you, while this was the least frequently mentioned reason by Chinese. Bicultural Chinese interviewees observed that one could perform nonverbal actions or even say English I love you as substitutions for saying Wo ai ni. Chinese survey respondents did not endorse these options, and instead consistently minimized both verbal and nonverbal love expressions. The pattern of responses is consistent with theoretical proposals about high vs. low context cultures, especially with regards to the usefulness of saying I love you for relationship management purposes, and for asserting (or avoiding) statements of one's individual autonomy.
Urban living offers conveniences which reduce the need to rely on family and close friends. The c... more Urban living offers conveniences which reduce the need to rely on family and close friends. The current paper
tested the urbanization hypothesis, which is that residents of urban areas will be more individualistic and less
collectivistic than rural residents. Individualism, collectivism and family-consciousness were assessed in college
students in several Turkish cities and one US city (Boston). Urbanization co-varied most strongly not with
individualism, but with low values of vertical collectivism, which is the tendency to subordinate personal goals
to those of in-group authority figures, and with family-consciousness (communalism within the family group).
family-consciousness and vertical collectivism were less frequently endorsed in larger urban areas compared to
rural areas. These associations provide a foundation for asking more specific questions about what aspects of
urban living (e.g., income,
Uploads
Videos by Catherine Caldwell-Harris
This is a very preliminary practice talk, I mainly just wanted to share my work and let the long version get some air time. I'll post the 4 minute version once I refine it down... Comments welcome of course.
A couple things I already know to change are:
I won't mention high-functioning (although 10 years ago people used that label). I won't talk about "mental functioning of people that were close to the human standard model" etc.
My 11 year old son coming in and out of my room -- really unnerved me. I thought he was at the neighbor's house so I didn't put any barricades on the door to my bedroom.
Example: Why was the presence of a dishwasher in the home of rural Turkish families in the 1990s the best statistical predictor of mothers refraining from using corporal punishment with their children?
Autism Spectrum: Strength Based Approach by Catherine Caldwell-Harris
Yet autistic sociality is different. Our purpose here is to suggest one type of difference that has received little attention: lack of interest in status and hierarchy. During social interaction, autistics are less concerned, and NTs more concerned, with successfully navigating social hierarchies, as occurs when meeting new people or making small talk at a party. NTs are more concerned with the social status and social usefulness of other people. Autistics, in contrast, are more accepting of diverse presentations in others, and more egalitarian in their social attitudes. They concentrate on the usefulness of the information conveyed, rather than the strategic benefits of associating with this new person.
Autistic women’s special interests differ from neurotypical women’s hobbies by being particularly information-rich and conducive to systemizing. A novel finding is that true crime and interest in people/celebrities allows autistic women to learn about how other people’s minds work. The intense interest in systemizing the social and psychological world may reflect autistic women’s intuitions that this is a growth area for them.
Clare Harrop, a leading researcher of restricted and repetitive behaviors (RRBs), wrote with her colleagues, “.as a field we do not understand what causes RRBs, and this is particularly difficult to ascertain when children are minimally verbal.” (1). The current account is a response to this request for new ideas about the cause of repetitive behaviors. Motor repetitions in autism are an alternative phenotype which has adaptive and functional consequences: fueling trial-and-error tinkering which could lead to inventions, i.e., novel, useful configurations of objects. This hypothesis is consistent with the proposed mechanism of heterochrony (11), and is complementary to other theories which take a strength-based approach to autism (8, 19). This hypothesis helps explain similarities between motor repetitions and circumscribe interests, illuminates parents' observations of their child's motor repetitions [e.g., (30)], and has heuristic value in providing ideas for therapists to introduce flexibility into the motor routines of minimally verbal children.
Method: We analyzed the word usage patterns of 30 self-identified autistic bloggers and 30 age and gender-matched non-autistic bloggers, assumed to be neurotypical (NT). Blog content was analyzed using qualitative methods.
Results: Compared to NT bloggers, autistic bloggers wrote in a more complex manner. Autistic bloggers often wrote about science or other abstract topics rather than discussing daily life events.
Conclusion: One subset of autistic individuals, those who write blogs, wrote in a more complex style than did typically developed peers. This may reflect autistic bloggers being an elite subset of autistic individuals, or a cognitive style that includes intellectual interests.
Cross-cultural Psychology by Catherine Caldwell-Harris
tested the urbanization hypothesis, which is that residents of urban areas will be more individualistic and less
collectivistic than rural residents. Individualism, collectivism and family-consciousness were assessed in college
students in several Turkish cities and one US city (Boston). Urbanization co-varied most strongly not with
individualism, but with low values of vertical collectivism, which is the tendency to subordinate personal goals
to those of in-group authority figures, and with family-consciousness (communalism within the family group).
family-consciousness and vertical collectivism were less frequently endorsed in larger urban areas compared to
rural areas. These associations provide a foundation for asking more specific questions about what aspects of
urban living (e.g., income,