Background The Friendship Questionnaire (FQ) is a widely used measure of friendships in autism research and beyond. This study sought to revisit the original paper where the measure was presented, using a larger sample of both autistic and non-autistic participants to examine gender differences in scoring. It also sought to expand upon the original paper by comparing FQ results to those of the Unidimensional Relationship Closeness Scale (URCS), to examine whether there are differences in how autistic people report on their general friendships in contrast to their most significant relationships. Methods Participants were recruited for an online study, and 949 people (532 autistic, 417 non-autistic) aged between 18 and 81 took part. Participants completed a demographic questionnaire, the Autism Quotient-28, the Friendship Questionnaire, and the Unidimensional Relationship Closeness Scale. Results We used robust regressions and Pearson's correlational analyses, conducted in R. Autistic people scored lower than non-autistic people on the FQ, and similar gender differences in the pattern of FQ scores were seen in both groups. There was a significant negative correlation between AQ and FQ scores in both groups. On the URCS, we took the data from those who rated specific close relationships and found that autistic people scored this relationship more highly than non-autistic adults did. There was a significant negative correlation between AQ and URCS scores in both groups. Also, in both groups, there was a significant positive correlation between FQ and URCS scores. Limitations The data is entirely self-report, and diagnoses could not be verified with a clinician, although AQ scores support self-identification as autistic. Also, the groups were not evenly matched on age and other demographic variables, although this was controlled for in analyses. It is also the case that more autistic than non-autistic people were unable to specify a close relationship to score on the URCS, meaning that a certain set of experiences are not represented in this data. Conclusions We conclude that our data replicates the core finding of the original FQ paper that autistic people score lower on the FQ. In contrast to that paper, however, we found that there were gender differences among the autistic population. Also, our inclusion of the URCS suggests that the intimate romantic relationships and best-friendships of autistic people can be of similar quality to those of non-autistic people, suggesting that there may be important differences in autistic people's relations with friends in general versus close friends and romantic partners.

中文翻译：

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友谊问卷、自闭症和性别差异：一项重新审视的研究。

背景 友谊问卷 (FQ) 是自闭症研究及其他领域广泛使用的友谊测量方法。本研究试图重新审视提出该措施的原始论文，使用自闭症和非自闭症参与者的更大样本来检查评分中的性别差异。它还试图通过将 FQ 结果与一维关系亲密量表 (URCS) 的结果进行比较来扩展原始论文，以检查自闭症患者在报告他们的一般友谊与他们最重要的关系时是否存在差异。方法 招募参与者进行在线研究，共有 949 人（532 名自闭症患者，417 名非自闭症患者）参加，年龄在 18 至 81 岁之间。参与者完成了人口统计问卷、自闭症商数 28、友谊问卷、和一维关系亲密度量表。结果 我们使用了稳健回归和 Pearson 相关分析，在 R 中进行。自闭症患者的 FQ 得分低于非自闭症患者，并且在两组中都看到了类似的 FQ 得分模式的性别差异。两组的AQ和FQ得分呈显着负相关。在 URCS 上，我们从那些对特定亲密关系进行评分的人那里获取数据，发现自闭症患者对这种关系的评分高于非自闭症成年人。两组的 AQ 和 URCS 评分呈显着负相关。此外，在两组中，FQ 和 URCS 评分之间存在显着的正相关。局限性 数据完全是自我报告，无法与临床医生核实诊断，尽管 AQ 分数支持将自我识别为自闭症。此外，这些组在年龄和其他人口统计变量上的匹配度并不均匀，尽管在分析中对此进行了控制。与非自闭症患者相比，更多自闭症患者无法指定密切关系以在 URCS 上得分也是这种情况，这意味着该数据中没有代表特定的一组经历。结论 我们的结论是，我们的数据复制了原始 FQ 论文的核心发现，即自闭症患者的 FQ 得分较低。然而，与那篇论文相比，我们发现自闭症人群之间存在性别差异。此外，我们纳入 URCS 表明，自闭症患者的亲密浪漫关系和最好的友谊可以与非自闭症患者的质量相似，