A recent study published in Scientific Reports suggests that people with higher autistic traits may use the act of naming their emotions as a way to cope with their intense dislike of unpredictability. This strategy, known as affect labeling, appears to help reduce anxiety by making vague internal feelings feel more structured. These findings provide evidence that the discomfort of not knowing can motivate individuals to actively manage their emotional well-being.
Akitaka Fujii, a doctoral student in the Department of Cognitive and Psychological Sciences at Nagoya University in Japan, and Masahiro Hirai, an associate professor at Nagoya University and Jichi Medical University, set out to understand how individuals process complex emotions. High levels of anxiety are incredibly common among individuals on the autism spectrum. While autism is primarily characterized by differences in social communication and repetitive behaviors, co-occurring anxiety disorders affect a large portion of this population.
To understand this connection, the researchers focused on intolerance of uncertainty. This psychological concept describes a personal trait where someone reacts negatively to unpredictable situations. People who score high in autistic traits often experience a heightened sensitivity to the unknown. This heightened state tends to be a major source of anxiety.
To manage this anxiety, people use various coping strategies. One option is a direct mental strategy known as affect labeling, which is simply the act of putting feelings into words. By attaching a specific word to a confusing internal sensation, a person can make that feeling less mysterious.
“Anxiety is a major concern in autism research, and intolerance of uncertainty has been proposed as one important factor that may help explain why anxiety is elevated in autistic individuals and people with higher autistic traits,” Fujii and Hirai noted. “At the same time, we were interested in affect labeling, the act of putting feelings into words, because it may help people make ambiguous internal experiences more understandable.”
This creates an interesting dilemma for those with high autistic traits. Many individuals on the autism spectrum experience a condition called alexithymia, which involves having difficulty identifying and describing one’s own emotions. Because of this, the exact strategy that could help reduce their anxiety is inherently difficult for them to use.
“The puzzle that motivated this study was that these two ideas seem to create a kind of conflict,” Fujii and Hirai explained. “People with higher autistic traits may have difficulty identifying and describing their emotions, but the distress caused by uncertainty might also motivate them to try to label and clarify those emotions.”
To test these ideas, the scientists recruited 532 adults from the general Japanese population. The participants ranged in age from twenty to thirty-nine years old. The researchers removed surveys from people who provided repetitive or inattentive answers to ensure data quality. This process left a final sample of 505 adults, consisting of 254 men and 251 women.
The participants completed four different self-report questionnaires. The first questionnaire measured autistic traits within the general population, assessing characteristics like social skills and communication. A second questionnaire measured the participants’ intolerance of uncertainty. This survey looked at how much fear they felt when facing completely unknown situations.
A third survey evaluated their use of affect labeling. This questionnaire looked at how often the participants used language to process their emotional states. The final questionnaire measured their current situational anxiety as well as their general, stable levels of trait anxiety.
The scientists used statistical software to compare two competing psychological models. One model proposed that difficulties with affect labeling increase a person’s intolerance of uncertainty, leading to higher anxiety. The second model proposed the exact opposite sequence, suggesting that a high intolerance of uncertainty actually acts as a driving force to use affect labeling.
Both models fit the data well from a purely mathematical standpoint. However, Fujii and Hirai determined that the second model made the most sense based on established psychological theory. The researchers found a fascinating dual pathway in the data regarding how people manage their mental health.
First, the data supported a traditional risk pathway. Having higher autistic traits was associated with a higher intolerance of uncertainty, which directly linked to higher anxiety. People with higher autistic traits also generally reported a lower baseline ability to use affect labeling. When people cannot easily make sense of what they are feeling, their overall anxiety tends to rise.
Second, the data revealed a novel adaptive pathway. Participants with higher autistic traits and a higher intolerance of uncertainty also reported higher use of affect labeling when trying to cope. In this specific pathway, the use of affect labeling was linked to lower anxiety.
“What surprised us most was the positive association between intolerance of uncertainty and affect labeling,” Fujii and Hirai told PsyPost. “We initially considered the possibility that difficulties with affect labeling might increase uncertainty, but the pattern also fit the idea that uncertainty can motivate people to actively try to label their feelings.”
The scientists explained that this challenges the assumption that emotional struggles completely prevent people from trying to process their feelings. “This suggests that affect labeling should not simply be treated as the opposite of alexithymia or emotional difficulty,” the authors noted. “It may also function as an active coping strategy that people use when their internal state feels unclear or hard to predict.”
The authors suggest that this represents a profound mental conflict. Individuals may struggle deeply with emotional identification but still exert massive effort to name their feelings. This highlights a strength that is often overlooked in psychological research.
“One point we would like to emphasize is that this study is not only about deficits,” Fujii and Hirai explained. “It suggests that people with higher autistic traits may face real difficulty in identifying and verbalizing emotions, but they may also be actively trying to cope with uncertainty.”
The researchers hope these findings offer a new way of looking at mental health support. “The main takeaway is that uncertainty may have a dual role,” the authors said. “On one hand, difficulty tolerating uncertainty was associated with higher anxiety; on the other hand, it was also associated with greater use of affect labeling, which in turn was linked to lower anxiety.”
Finding the right words could be a practical tool for many people. “In everyday terms, putting feelings into words may be one way people try to reduce the uncertainty of their own internal experiences,” Fujii and Hirai noted. “However, this does not mean that affect labeling is easy or universally effective, especially for people who find it difficult to identify what they are feeling.”
Because of this difficulty, the researchers caution against viewing this strategy as a perfect solution. “We would describe the findings as theoretically meaningful rather than as evidence for a large or immediate practical effect,” the authors explained. “The pathway in which intolerance of uncertainty was linked to higher anxiety was stronger, while the adaptive pathway through affect labeling was smaller but still important conceptually.”
Instead, the authors view this strategy as one piece of a larger mental health puzzle. “So we would not interpret affect labeling as a ‘cure’ for anxiety,” Fujii and Hirai said. “Rather, the results suggest that helping people put feelings into words may be one useful component of broader emotional support, especially when uncertainty about internal experiences contributes to distress.”
While these findings provide evidence for a positive coping mechanism, the study has a few limitations. “The most important caveat is that this was a cross-sectional study, so we cannot determine causality,” Fujii and Hirai noted. “Although our model assumes that intolerance of uncertainty may motivate affect labeling, it is also possible that anxiety, uncertainty, and emotion-labeling difficulties influence one another over time.”
The scientists also emphasized the nature of their sample group. “Another important caveat is that our sample consisted of adults from the general Japanese population, not a clinical sample of autistic individuals,” the authors explained. “Therefore, the findings should be understood as trait-level associations, and future research is needed to test whether the same mechanisms operate in clinically diagnosed autistic populations.”
It is also important not to oversimplify the connection between these psychological traits. “We would also like to preempt the interpretation that autistic traits ’cause’ anxiety, or that simply telling people to label their emotions will necessarily reduce anxiety,” Fujii and Hirai warned. “For some people, labeling emotions may be difficult or frustrating without appropriate support.”
Future research will need to follow participants over time to see how these coping strategies develop. “A key next step is to test these pathways using longitudinal or experimental designs, because that would allow us to better examine the direction of the relationships,” the authors said. “It will also be important to study clinical autistic samples and to examine whether affect labeling works differently depending on factors such as alexithymia, sensory sensitivity, or rumination.”
The scientists plan to continue investigating how individuals protect their mental well-being. “In the long term, we are interested in how people choose different strategies to cope with uncertainty,” Fujii and Hirai explained. “Affect labeling may be one internal strategy, while repetitive behaviors or dichotomous thinking may be other ways of trying to make the world feel more predictable.”
This perspective could eventually change how therapists and caregivers approach emotional regulation. “This perspective may help shift the focus from simply asking what is impaired to asking what kinds of support can help people use adaptive strategies more effectively,” the authors noted. “For example, interpersonal support, such as helping someone find words for their feelings, may be especially important when affect labeling is difficult to do alone.”
The study, “Autism related traits and anxiety in the general population are linked through intolerance of uncertainty and affect labeling,” was authored by Akitaka Fujii and Masahiro Hirai.
