So I was reading the study in the title, found here: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep40700
Here are a few quotes:
we find that first impressions of individuals with ASD ... are not only far less favorable across a range of trait judgments compared to controls, but also are associated with reduced intentions to pursue social interaction. These patterns are remarkably robust, occur within seconds, do not change with increased exposure, and persist across both child and adult age groups
How people respond to unfamiliar individuals prior to social interaction is governed in large part by first impressions, which are near instantaneous judgments of personality and character traits based upon “thin slices” of information... negative first impressions often prompt rejection or avoidance behaviors. For individuals with ASD, negative perceptions may relate to the social exclusion they frequently experience
there is some evidence in the literature that the movement patterns of individuals with ASD are atypical and may represent a salient cue of awkwardness
This is really unfair and there is nothing we can do about it. People make judgements about us so quickly based solely on appearance (photos and videos) and neurotypical people consistently rated autistic people lower on the following:
- desire to hangout with
- desire to sit next to
- desire to talk to
- desire to live near
- attractiveness
- dominance
- likeableness
- smartness
- How approachable is this person?
- Would I see myself being friends with person?
And Autistic people were rated significantly higher on awkwardness. This based only on videos or even a static image! When people were shown only a transcript of the speech, autistic people were not rated worse. So these are snap judgements people make based on non-verbal information and appearance, and they do not change their mind once the judgement is made.
What can we even do about this? It would seem it's not even conscious behaviour in neurotypical people, they just get this automatic instant gut feeling that there is something "off" about autistic people when they see them.