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Why Social Psychology Needs Autism and Why Autism Needs Social Social Psychology Quarterly 2019, Vol. 82(1) 5–30 Why Social Psychology Ó American Sociological Association 2019 DOI: 10.1177/0190272519828304 Needs Autism and Why journals.sagepub.com/home/spq Autism Needs Social Psychology: Forensic and Clinical Considerations Douglas W. Maynard1 Abstract We know a lot about why the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has risen so dra- matically since the 1960s. However, social science and social psychology in particular fall short in the analysis of autistic behavior, the real-life manifestations of the disorder. In this address, I suggest that unless we tackle behavior in interaction, rather than as emanat- ing from individuals, we cannot analytically comprehend behavior as a socially real and holistic entity. The particular phenomena under investigation is transpositioning, or how a neurotypical (NT) professional initiates a sequence of action (first position) involving a recipient who has ASD. Then, the person with ASD fashions a response (second position) that is resistive or noncooperative. However, the NT professional subsequently fashions an action that portrays the ASD person’s second position or responsive behavior as an initiation or feature independent of what may have prompted it. Moreover, in reporting on the event in police, clinical, or other records, there is an elision of the prior initiations or first position actions such that the person with ASD is shown to have manifested ostensibly autonomous and anomalous behavior requiring interventions or remediation. Keywords autism, conversation analysis, crime, diagnosis, ethnomethodology In the early 2000s, the anthropologist autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is com- Roy Richard Grinker (2007:20) stated, monplace. People with ASD are acquain- ‘‘Autism is more familiar and visible tances, family members, friends or than ever before.’’ Three years later, friends’ sons or daughters, or coworkers. the social epidemiologists Ka-Yuet Liu, Marissa King, and Peter Bearman (2010:1390) could say, ‘‘autism increas- 1 ingly appears in the everyday life of University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, USA American families.’’ Now, after another Corresponding Author: decade, autism is so prevalent that every- Douglas W. Maynard, Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 8101 Sewell day contact between those who are ‘‘neu- Social Sciences, Madison, WI 53706, USA. rotypical’’ (NT) and individuals with Email: [email protected] 6 Social Psychology Quarterly 82(1) We know a lot about why the preva- I explore this interrelationship with lence of ASD—current estimates are 1 in regard to autism, but the matter pertains 58 (Baio et al. 2018)—has risen so dra- more generally. We do not study actual matically since the 1960s, when its occur- behavior—which is to say behavior in rence was approximately 1 in 10,000.1 interaction—for its inherent orderliness However, social science and social psy- because it is assumed to be a product or chology in particular fall short in the anal- an effect of something organized else- ysis of autistic behavior, the real-life man- where. Social psychology needs autism ifestations of the disorder, which is defined because it makes it incumbent on the dis- in the American Psychiatric Association cipline to expand its understanding of all (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual human behavior, including that which is of Mental Disorders (APA 2013) as indi- currently regarded as neurotypical, as cated by persistent—lifelong—deficits in fundamentally embedded in its environ- social communication and social interac- ments of embodied social activity. Recip- tion and restricted, repetitive patterns of rocally, nevertheless, autism needs social behavior, interests, or activities. psychology and the related enterprise In this article, I suggest that we should known as ethnomethodology and conver- try to understand behavior in interaction sation analysis (EMCA), whose domain rather than as the property of the individ- includes the concreteness of embodied ual. Unless we do so, we cannot analyti- conduct (Garfinkel 1967; Goodwin 2000, cally comprehend behavior as a socially 2017; Mondada 2006) and the study of real and holistic entity. The centrality talk in interaction (Clayman and Gill of interaction to the social psychological 2012; Schegloff 2007), to unlock dimen- enterprise is captured in Cooley’s sions of forensic, clinical, educational, (1922:36–37) classic statement: and even parental interactions with and depictions of children on the spectrum in A separate individual is an abstrac- terms of the behavior that prompts or jus- tion unknown to experience, and so tifies interventions, some of which are likewise is society when regarded as highly punitive. This matter pertains to something apart from individuals. what happens in the talk as well as in The real thing is Human Life, which police and clinical recordkeeping and may be considered either in an indi- has implications beyond interventions vidual aspect or in a social, that is to say a general, aspect; but is always, with autistic individuals. as a matter of fact, both individual and general. WHAT IS SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY? 1Current estimates from the Centers for Dis- Let us start with a classic definition of ease Control suggest a prevalence figure of 1 in social psychology, which Cartwright 58 children. Such factors as technological advan- (1979:91) formulated: ‘‘Social psychology ces in neonatal care, advanced paternal age, net- is that branch of the social sciences which working effects, diagnostic substitution (espe- attempts to explain how society influen- cially replacing the ‘‘mental retardation’’ with autism-related diagnoses), accretion (whereby ces the cognition, motivation, develop- individuals may be given more than one diagno- ment, and behavior of individuals and, sis), the broadening of the concept, and so forth in turn, is influenced by them.’’ Cart- account for a substantial amount of the upsurge. wright is positing a mutual influence See, for example, Eyal et al. (2010); Gernsbacher, Dawson, and Goldsmith (2005); Grinker (2007); between behavior (among other features King and Bearman (2009); and Liu, King, and of an individual) and society. However, Bearman (2010). earlier in the same paper from which his Why Social Psychology and Autism Need Each Other 7 definition is taken, Cartwright (1979:88) part of the investigative enterprise (Dan- also states, ziger 1990). Actual experience, in the approach to be followed here, would The body of knowledge we now include concrete interactional environ- have ...is also disproportionately ments in which behavior is embedded. concerned with certain aspects of social More contemporaneously, Martin behavior . by far the largest propor- (2011) has echoed Danziger’s critique by tion, especially in recent years, has proposing that social theory (including been devoted to work on cognitive pro- social psychological theory) has assumed cesses occurring within individuals, or that social experience, independent of on the product of these processes. the ‘‘grid of perception’’ or the subjective categories that can mentally stabilize In also suggesting that ‘‘the emphasis things, is chaotic and unorganized (cf. on subjective experience has a long tradi- Garfinkel 1988). In the case of autism, tion,’’ Cartwright (1979:89) lines up with this primary organization is seen to be the social constructionist Danziger the brain and its cognitive components (1990, 1997), whose studies of the field or more recently, our DNA and the of psychology demonstrate the develop- human genome. Insofar as the primary ment of a ‘‘synthetic investigative prac- locus of organization lies within the brain tice’’ in the first half of the twentieth cen- or the genome, then actual behavior is epi- tury, which stressed lawlike, abstract, phenomenal rather than worthy of direct and impersonal processes, some of which analysis in its own right. Our approach might be controlled through environmen- to interaction, instead, echoes a call that tal interventions (Danziger 1990:116–17). Bearman (2013:S11) has made. Having Furthermore, psychology (and by exten- reviewed a collection of studies that treat sion, social psychology) regarded behav- ‘‘environments as setting in which genetic ioral conduct on the part of subjects as things can happen,’’ he goes on: ‘‘It would ‘‘a response to impersonal, asocial ‘stim- be great to think about ways to make them uli’, mediated by psychological processes come alive; that is, to identify mechanisms inside the subject’’ (Danziger 1997:18). by which humans in interaction with one In the formative period of psychology, another constitute, through their interac- a classic example was the Galtonian tion, genomic influence.’’ One step in this approach to measuring ability: the idea direction is to first capture the organiza- that individuals could be gauged in terms tion of interaction in its own right. To of their differences from group means and paraphrase a comment that Schegloff that mental ability (seen as the result of (2003:46) makes concerning what he abstract processes such as heredity and called the ‘‘neurobiology of behavior,’’ link- social environment) could be correlated ages can only happen when both the struc- with schooling and other outcomes (Dan- ture and functioning of neurobiology—and ziger 1990). This model had a powerful genetics in particular—are coupled with influence on psychology, in part because the accurate, valid description and analy- of its quantitative methodologies, and
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