A Tuesday might include
- Looking at the tutor’s face while thinking better at the table
- Laughing at the second joke
- Saying “yeah, totally” to a plan you have doubts about
Each bought something. Each cost something.
Where we were
Weeks 1–5 covered the handshake, missing documentation, envelopes, the clock and repair. Week 5 began implementing selected parts.
This week asks what those subroutines cost you to run.
Masking, in this course
Running a subroutine you wouldn’t run by default, so that you will be read a particular way.
The research word is camouflaging: people do it to fit in and connect, through masking (hiding a default) and compensation (performing an expected response), and it has consequences.
Hull et al. (2017), Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 47(8)Don’t take that on the course’s word
277 autistic adults, surveyed in partnership with autistic adults. One of three themes: “positive aspects of camouflaging”.
- greater access to social spaces
- protection from harm
Camouflaging “seen as necessary to survive in a world designed for the neurotypical majority”.
Bradley, Shaw, Baron-Cohen & Cassidy (2021), Autism in Adulthood 3(4)It’s a measured thing, not a mood
Before 2019 there was no self-report measure of camouflaging at all.
The CAT-Q was built from autistic adults’ own accounts — not a clinician’s model — and given to 354 autistic and 478 non-autistic adults.
Three factors, 25 items. α = 0.94, test–retest r = 0.77.
Hull et al. (2019), Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 49(3)Equivalent factor structures across diagnostic group.
The three stages, properly
Hull’s model, from 92 autistic adults:
| Stage | What it is |
|---|---|
| Motivation | to fit in, and to connect with others |
| Doing it | masking — hiding a default response |
| compensation — performing an expected one | |
| Consequences | exhaustion; threats to how people see themselves |
It works, and it has a price
262 autistic people surveyed. Both camouflaging heavily across contexts, and switching between camouflaging and not, were related to poorer mental health.
Cage & Troxell-Whitman (2019), Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 49(5)Time spent camouflaging
Bradley et al. asked about the frequency and length of time spent camouflaging. Their conclusion names the axis:
“Time spent camouflaging is what seems to be most damaging”
The “dangers” theme ties the amount of time to exhaustion, isolation, poor mental and physical health, loss of identity, others’ unreal expectations, and delayed diagnosis.
Bradley et al. (2021), Autism in Adulthood 3(4)Switching carries its own charge.
“Just decide when it’s worth it”
Less free than it sounds. Masking is a predictable response to stigma and to how autism has been narrated — the deficit narrative, in their analysis.
They call it “the illusion of choice”.
Pearson & Rose (2021), Autism in Adulthood 3(1)And they name the cause
Asked why they needed to spend so much time camouflaging, participants pointed at society’s lack of awareness and acceptance of autism.
Their lay summary adds that reducing the pressure to camouflage “could benefit everyone in society”.
Bradley et al. (2021)In the room: price one subroutine (8 min)
Shared situation: five minutes of optional small talk before a tutorial with two classmates you know.
3 min, alone: estimate for yourself or a fictional student. Five fields: subroutine, context, what it might buy, recovery hours, pressure. Private fields may say “private”.
5 min, in pairs: spend one minute predicting the other’s estimate, then reveal only cost and pressure values you are willing to share. Compare for four minutes. Fictional values are welcome; label every estimate as such.
Who wants this changed?
So the ledger has a pressure column
Beside each subroutine: did you run it because you chose to, because it was expected, or because not running it would have cost something you couldn’t afford — enforced?
A budget where someone else sets the prices is still a budget.
It helps to write down who set them.
Using the ledger across the room
Undergraduates never diagnosed with autism also report camouflaging — and the more they do, the more distress they report.
O’Loghlen & Lang (2024), Autism in Adulthood 6(1)Long before: emotional labor. Flight attendants paid to be “nicer than natural”.
Hochschild (2012), University of California PressAnd the instrument agrees
Remember the CAT-Q result from earlier: equivalent factor structures across diagnostic group.
The measure built from autistic adults’ accounts measures the same construct, the same way, in people who aren’t autistic.
Reading the ledger
Two things to notice before the numbers.
One row has no purchase. The switching charge bought nothing — it is what the day’s shape cost, not what any subroutine bought.
The total is a comparison, not a verdict. Six and a quarter recovery hours for a six-hour teaching day is a number worth knowing, not a number to feel bad about.
The ledger
| Subroutine | Context | What it bought | Cost (recovery h) | Pressure |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eye contact while thinking | tutorial | read as engaged | 1.5 | expected |
| Small talk | before lecture | two people say hi | 0.5 | chosen |
| Laughing at a joke | group meeting | meeting kept moving | 0.25 | chosen |
| “Yeah, totally” to a doubtful plan | group chat | avoided a thread | 1 | enforced |
| Hiding that the room was too loud | café | stayed with group | 2 | expected |
| Switching charge | campus to home | none | 1 | n/a — transition |
| Total | 6.25 |
Before the rules: what a budget is for
A budget is not a plan to spend less. It is a plan to spend deliberately.
The pressure column records where that choice is constrained.
Five spending rules
- Budget before, not after
- Declining is a line item
- Buy what you need
- Watch the switching charge
- Don’t run over budget for long
One at a time.
Three small requests, one remaining hour
1. Budget before, not after
Look at tomorrow’s timetable and estimate the spend.
Use the estimate to decide what can move before the day starts.
2. Declining is a line item
Not running a subroutine costs something too: being read as cold, or asked if you’re alright.
Write that cost down beside the decline.
Then you are comparing two prices — not a price against a free option.
Break
14:55–15:05
Resume at 15:05.
In the room: price both options (7 min)
Use the same small-talk situation. 2 min: estimate the five fields for declining. Label both rows predictions.
3 min, in pairs: compare values you are willing to share; choose run, decline or no affordable change. A fictional comparison is available.
2 min: write what information could change the choice.
3. Buy what you need
Spend on the subroutines that buy something you want.
Some of your rows will turn out to have bought nothing but the absence of a question.
4. Watch the switching charge
If the switching line is large, the fix may be fewer switches — not less masking.
Fewer contexts, more consistent settings, in whichever direction you choose.
5. Don’t run over budget for long
That’s week 7, and it is the reason week 7 sits immediately before the break.
In the room: revise a fictional budget (12 min)
9am tutorial; 10am group meeting; noon paid shift. One quiet hour: 11–12. These are fictional recovery-hour estimates, not measured prices.
| Demand | Run | Decline | Pressure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Face-looking in tutorial | 0.5 | 0.25: explain looking at notes | expected |
| Five minutes’ small talk | 0.5 | 0 | chosen |
| Campus-to-work switch | 0.5 | unavailable here | n/a — transition |
2 min: read. 4 min: compare two plans and what each changes. 3 min: the shift moves to 11:30; what now fits half an hour? 3 min: compare two proposals and one limit of the estimates.
Not a grade
A day with a large spend isn’t a failure.
A day with no spend at all isn’t the goal.
The ledger is for deciding.
The assignment, and where it comes from
The Protocol Specification asks you to document one social subroutine as though it were an undocumented API, with conformance tests.
A row from the ledger is one possible candidate: you have already considered what it costs and what it buys.
What this week added to the vocabulary
- masking — running a subroutine you wouldn’t run by default
- the ledger — subroutine, context, what it bought, recovery cost, pressure
- recovery hours — the course’s planning unit, estimated from your own experience
- the switching charge — its own line
- pressure — chosen, expected, enforced
Week 9 reuses pressure for depth. Week 11 reuses it for who concedes.
The same subroutine, two prices
Sustained eye contact for one whole tutorial might cost:
- almost nothing for one person
- the rest of the afternoon for another
Neither person’s estimate sets the price for the other.
Thursday’s lab compares your estimates.
Due Friday 2 April, 23:59
Protocol Specification: one social subroutine, documented as an undocumented API, with conformance tests.
A row from this week’s ledger makes a good candidate.
If time remains
Which demand in the fictional day could an institution change, and how would you decide whether that change helped the people using it?
Optional discussion. Finish by 15:55.