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Subgroups of people with high Autism-Spectrum Quotient scores identified from a large set of personality traits and attributes

Fujiwara, M.; Numano, S.; Tanaka, T.; Nakamura, M.; Kato, N.; Haruno, M.

2022-07-10 psychiatry and clinical psychology
10.1101/2022.07.06.22277323 medRxiv
Show abstract

The Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ) is a widely used index to quantify autistic traits. Previous studies using clustering analysis have indicated that people showing high AQ and other autism indices may comprise several subtypes. However, those studies mainly focused on Big5 personality traits and analyzed a limited number of samples (participants). The inclusion of a larger set of personality traits and attributes would contribute not only to understanding autism more deeply, but also to characterizing AQ more precisely. In addition, an analysis of larger general populations would give new perspectives on people with high AQ scores. To address these issues, here we conducted a personality traits-based clustering of 1364 subjects who had an AQ score of 33 or higher (high AQ group) collected online. We identified three subclasses (subtypes): Group 1, characterized by emotional instability, low self-esteem, high hostility, anxiety, depressive tendency and schizotypal traits; Group 2, characterized by high BIS for an inhibitory attitude towards novelty, and high Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) and Group 3, characterized by personality traits and attributes consistent of the average of the general population. Thus, this study provides empirical results showing subtypes of the high AQ population.

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