Self-awareness and metacognition in a young adult student population: an autistic trait approach

Autism is characterised by social and communication difficulties and restricted and repetitive patterns of behaviour, interests or activities; traits that are evident across clinical and non-clinical populations. Historically, autistic individuals were seen as egocentric, but more contemporary views suggest that challenges might stem from difficulties in distinguishing the self from others. There are many ways the self can be understood. The thesis explores private and public self-awareness as well as metacognition. Existing literature has often treated autistic traits as a general construct with the more nuanced contributions of the subdomains less explored. Furthermore, despite the idea that metacognition may play animportant role in self-awareness, these constructs are rarely studied together.

After identifying an appropriate Autism Quotient model to assess autistic traits in a non-clinical sample of young adults (Chapter 4), the thesis investigates the relationship between autistic traits, self-awareness and metacognition (Chapter 5). Two key findings emerged. First, autistic traits were related to self-awareness and metacognition, but only when broken down into their subdomains. Secondly, the nature of these relationships manifested differently in social (involving others) and non-social (referring only to the self) domains. The difference underscores the essential role of context in self-awareness. Focusing on the social context, the statistical mediation effect of trait anxiety within the relationship between social skills and public self-awareness was significant (Chapter 6). Further analysis then investigated how these constructs relate to the perceived benefits and costs of helpseeking (Chapter 7). Results indicated that heightened public self-awareness was associated with an increased perception of the costs associated with help-seeking, suggesting that greater self-awareness might inadvertently pose challenges for individuals. Identifying the relationship led to a theoretical model for future research to explore autistic traits in nonclinical populations to better tailor support strategies aimed at overcoming barriers to educational success.