Beyond the interpersonal core of Schizotypal Personality and Autism: Associations between autism and schizotypal traits are not merely due to Social Anxiety.
Several lines of research have established overlap between autistic and schizotypal traits but there have been limited attempts to identify variables that might explain this overlap. As both sets of traits are individually associated with social anxiety, we investigated whether social anxiety traits could explain the overlap between them. To this end, the Autism Quotient (AQ), Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire Brief-Revised (SPQ-BR) and Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale-Self Report (LSAS-SR) were administered to a non-clinical population of 345 adults. Correlational analyses revealed strong, positive correlations between autistic, schizotypal, and social anxiety traits. After controlling for social anxiety, the association between total AQ and SPQ-BR scores remained modest and significant, suggesting that their association is not simply due to a shared association with social anxiety.