Motivational Perspectives in Thinking About Someone who is Autistic

In discussions about what it is to be autistic we tend focus on the areas of emotion, cognition, physiology and behaviour. Perhaps there is a bit too much focus on the last, and not quite enough on the first, but they are all getting attention these days, and they are all interesting and worthy of such attention. However, if we want to fully understand any individual, or any community of similar people, one of the key things we need to be focusing on is motivation. Of course motivation is related to, not separate from, the other four areas mentioned above (how we think and feel influences what we want, which in turn influence our behaviour), but it still needs to be thought about separately. After all, emotion, cognition, physiology and behaviour are themselves intimately interconnected (our thoughts influence our emotions and vice-versa, our emotions influence our physiology, and so on…), but we still deal with each of them as important areas of focus in their own right.

 

I sometimes use the metaphor of the method actor when describing the importance of the motivational perspective. If I want to get inside the skin of a particular character, I need to know how they think, what they believe, how they see the world; what their behavioural mannerisms and habits would be; what emotions they are likely to feel in particular situations.

But I also crucially need to know what they want, what they value, what is important to them, what motivates them.

 

By definition, there are general differences between non-autistic and autistic people when it comes to how each thinks, sees the world, feels and behaves. But there are also general differences between what is likely to motivate a non-autistic and what is likely to motivate an autistic (there are of course individual differences within both populations as well). I made some very tentative observations on what some of these differences might be, in the context of evolutionary psychology, in my previous blog post at: https://autisticallyminded.blogspot.com/2021/09/human-drivesinstincts-neurotypical.html.

 

Very generally, we can usually assume some difference with regard to to both amount and type of social/interpersonal motivation (a desire for fewer social occasions, fewer friends; for quieter settings, more intense discussion, etc). Interest in hobbies etc is generally more intense, or else not there at all – when we autistic people are interested in something, we are really interested in it! (There is a whole theory of autism based on this interest-driven aspect, called the Monotropic theory of autism; see https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-32/august-2019/me-and-monotropism-unified-theory-autism).

 

Leaving out the motivational perspective often skews people’s interpretations of an autistic person’s behaviour, for example:

·       Difficulty completing a task may be seen as lack of ability rather than, perhaps, lack of interest. What seems obviously important to the person interpreting the behaviour (teacher, parent, friend, therapist, partner, boss, etc) may not seem important at all to an autistic person.

·       An autistic client in therapy who manages to recover from the damaging emotional, cognitive, and behavioural vicious cycles of social anxiety may still not engage much in “typical” social behaviour, which may seem puzzling, even worrying, to the therapist unless they take into account the possibility that they are simply not motivated to do so, and are quite happy with their life as it is, now that they are not plagued by “shoulds” and “what ifs” with regard to social life.

·       And last but not least, the frequently atypical nature of autistic social/interpersonal motivation has often led clinicians, researchers, therapists and others to assume that most autistic people aren’t motivated much by romantic love. I can’t comment on this from a research point of view, but my experience over the last few years with autistic clients certainly doesn’t support any such sweeping generalisation.

 

And by the way, there is a very good way to find out what an autistic person wants/values/is motivated by… Ask them!