Do autistic traits predict pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors, and climate change belief?

Traits and behaviors associated with an autism diagnosis (e.g., social-communication difficulties), henceforth ‘autistic traits’, are continuously distributed in the population. People with a clinical autism diagnosis are at the extreme end of this distribution (Ruzich et al., 2015). In autism research, examining autistic traits rather than clinically diagnosed autism is considered a powerful approach to investigate cognitions and behaviors associated with autism. This approach has led to valuable developments in psychological and autism-related theories (see Happé & Frith, 2020) and the identification of small but important associations between autism and (a)typical cognitive processing (e.g., Gollwitzer et al., 2019; Taylor et al., 2019). This trait-wise approach to autism research helps to overcome existing difficulties in conducting large and well-powered studies, which are otherwise lacking when selectively sampling people with a clinical diagnosis of autism. Additionally, measuring and examining autistic traits is a more inclusive approach. It includes individuals who have high levels of autistic traits but may not have access to diagnostic services, as well as those who self-identify as autistic but do not seek a clinical diagnostic label. Equally, it is inclusive of people who may fall below diagnostic thresholds by their engaging in psychological strategies to limit their observable autistic traits (Livingston & Happé, 2017). Given these benefits of using autistic trait measures to study features of human cognition and behavior, when combined with the recent speculation that autistic personality traits are linked to environmentalism, it is a timely opportunity to advance this line of research. To this end, it is important to ground this topical issue in contemporary autism-related research. As there is no direct empirical research investigating associations between autistic traits and environmentalism, we start by considering several theoretically grounded reasons for and against the idea that autistic traits positively predict pro-environmental attitudes and behavior, and climate change belief.

There are several potential reasons to expect a positive association between autistic traits and pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors. First, resistance to change and intolerance of uncertainty, both in the short and long-term, are core features of autism (e.g., Bishop et al., 2013; Vasa et al., 2018). While typically these core features can result in several daily difficulties for people with many autistic traits (e.g., in coping with unexpected changes to daily routines), we speculate that they may serve as important psychological factors underlying and motivating conservation efforts. For example, a rapidly changing environment with an uncertain future may concern individuals with high levels of autistic traits. This phenomenon may be enhanced due to heightened levels of attention to detail and weather salience in autistic populations (Bolton et al., 2020), resulting in a greater perceptual awareness of ongoing environmental changes, which is known to shape climate change belief (Taylor et al., 2014).

Second, special interests in non-human animals, nature, and the environment, are widely self-reported by autistic individuals and are a positive predictor of their subjective wellbeing and life satisfaction (e.g., Grove et al., 2018). Further, people with many autistic traits demonstrate an affinity for non-human animals, with preferences for interacting with non-human animals over humans and inanimate objects (e.g., Celani, 2002; Prothmann et al., 2009). Accordingly, there is a greater level of pet ownership in families with an autistic person (e.g., Carlisle, 2014) and personal accounts of autistic people suggest they identify more closely with non-human animals than humans (Atherton & Cross, 2018). This may be underpinned by a greater tendency for people with many autistic traits, compared to those low in autistic traits, to anthropomorphize – attributing human mental states to non-human animals (Atherton & Cross, 2018; White & Remington, 2019). At the same time, it has been theorized that autistic traits are predictive of atypical motivation to engage with human agents, resulting in potentially lower adherence to social norms compared to those with fewer autistic traits (Chevallier et al., 2012; but see Livingston et al., 2019). This might explain why autistic traits may be associated with a greater ability to act against normative social influences that are otherwise currently harming non-human agents and the environment.

Taken together, people with many autistic traits may have special interests and a particularly unique set of motivations to protect non-human animals and environmental interests that are threatened by climate change. In non-autistic populations, contact with and appreciation of nature (Alcock et al., 2020; Martin et al., 2020), as well as the ability to act against social norms in human society (Keizer & Schultz, 2018), is highly predictive of pro-environmental attitudes and behavior. Therefore, it follows that increased interest and connectedness with nature and non-human animals may increase pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors in those with high autistic traits. This may in part be driven by greater moral reasoning regarding protecting the environment and non-human animals from physical harm (Dempsey et al., 2020).

Third, autistic traits have been theoretically and empirically linked to an increased engagement in rational, deliberative thinking (Brosnan et al., 2016; Farmer et al., 2017; Shah et al., 2016) and accordingly, a reduced susceptibility to certain cognitive biases (e.g., the framing effect; Morsanyi & Byrne, 2019). In non-autistic populations, a deliberative mindset is predictive of reduced climate change skepticism (Trémolière & Djeriouat, 2020). Further, cognitive biases are known to impede rational thinking about the existence, risks, and consequences of climate change (Zaval & Cornwell, 2016). Therefore, it seems possible that the more rational, deliberative thinking style associated with autistic traits, may contribute to a stronger climate change belief and resulting pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors.

Fourth, autistic environmentalists, such as Thunberg, Packham, and Grandin, have highlighted autism as a key part of their identity. This has raised awareness and increased public interest of autism (e.g., Hartwell et al., 2020), while they have also become positive role models for autistic people. Indeed, role models play an important role in identity formation (Sealy & Singh, 2010). Autism identity is increasingly regarded to be a key positive social identity that can integrate into an individual's self-concept (Cooper et al., 2017). Recently, following the Social Identity Model of Pro-Environmental Action (see Fritsche et al., 2018), it has been suggested that Thunberg may serve as a ‘prototypical leader’ for young liberals, shaping group norms and intentions to take collective action on climate change (Sabherwal et al., 2021). We therefore speculate that Thunberg, and other autistic environmentalists, may equally serve as prototypical leaders for autistic people, potentially engendering even stronger pro-environmental views in people who consider autism as a salient aspect of their social identity. As such, in addition to promoting collective action among group members, those with high autistic traits may also be more likely to hold pro-environmental attitudes and engage more generally in pro-environmental behaviors, by drawing on behavioral cues from prominent autistic environmentalists. Similarly, society has long marginalized people with autistic traits and other minoritized social identities (Silberman, 2015). Therefore, people with many autistic traits may be more willing to attribute the changing climate to humans, i.e., have strong belief in anthropogenic climate change, partly in response to their historically negative treatment from non-autistic groups in society.

Despite convincing reasons for why autistic traits may be associated with pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors, there is an equally and arguably even stronger reason to expect no such relationship or even a negative link. Autistic traits are well-known to be associated with several psychological and socio-demographic barriers, which may also limit pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors. First, cognitive flexibility, the ability to shift thinking between two separate concepts or perspectives, positively predicts climate change belief and long-term oriented pro-environmental behaviors in the general population (Chen & Unsworth, 2019; Lange & Dewitte, 2019). Hence autism-related cognitive inflexibility (Morsanyi & Byrne, 2019), sometimes known as ‘black and white thinking’, might have the opposite effect.

Second, several psychological factors may limit the translation of pro-environmental attitudes to pro-environmental behaviors. For instance, autistic sensory sensitivities can result in intolerance to various sounds and foods (Ben-Sasson et al., 2019; Chistol et al., 2018). When this is combined with the aforementioned resistance to change in autism, it may constrain behavioral change to more pro-environmental options, such as using public transport and dietary changes to reduce meat consumption. Indeed, people with many autistic traits have reported sensory sensitivities, intolerance of uncertainty, and anxiety as key factors that limit their use of public transport (Haas et al., 2020). Similarly, working memory capacity is required for pro-environmental attitude and behavior alignment in non-autistic populations (Langenbach et al., 2020). Thus, reduced working memory capacities associated with autism (Habib et al., 2019), may result in a larger attitude-behavior gap in those with high levels of autistic traits.

Third, autistic traits are linked to being male, and lower levels of income, education, and employment (Skylark & Baron-Cohen, 2017). Indeed, recent estimates suggest just 21.7% of autistic adults are in paid employment (Putz et al., 2021). In the general population, these socio-demographic factors are associated with lower climate change belief (Hornsey et al., 2016) and limit available resources for engaging in domestic pro-environmental behaviors, particularly if adopting such behaviors is associated with an initial financial investment (e.g., purchasing a bike). Additionally, individuals with lower levels of income and education may have limited time and resources to engage as citizens (e.g., Son & Wilson, 2012), and more specifically, in collective activism and action against climate change.

Finally, high levels of autistic traits are linked with several daily challenges (APA, 2013), as well as other mental (e.g., anxiety; Hollocks et al., 2019) and physical (e.g., gastrointestinal; Weir et al., 2020) health conditions. Whilst prominent autistic environmentalists have also reported experiencing these difficulties and developed strategies to overcome them (e.g., Packham, 2019), it is arguable that they do not have the same level of difficulties experienced by most people with many autistic traits. These additional needs may, quite understandably, require prioritization, resulting in limited financial and psychological resources for consideration of the environment, climate change, and pro-environmental action.

Overall, there are theoretical and empirically based reasons for and against the hypothesis that autistic traits may positively predict pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors, and climate change belief. However, there is no direct empirical evidence on this topic. We therefore seek to address this gap in the literature and clarify public and media speculation of potential associations. Before examining any of the potential mechanisms underlying these putative associations (e.g., connectedness with nature, awareness of environmental changes), the critical starting point to addressing these gaps in the literature is to first establish whether autistic traits are linked to pro-environmental attitudes. Given the balance of the above-mentioned theory and evidence, alongside our clinical observations and co-production of this research with people with autistic traits, we, at first, tentatively predicted that autistic traits would be associated with greater pro-environmental attitudes.