Decision making processes based on social conventional rules in early adolescents with and without autism spectrum disorders

Hidetsugu Komeda, Hidekazu Osanai, Kaichi Yanaoka, Yuko Okamoto, Toru Fujioka, Sumiyoshi Arai, Keisuke Inohara, Masuo Koyasu, Takashi Kusumi, Shinichiro Takiguchi, Masao Kawatani, Hirokazu Kumazaki (+3 others)
2016 Scientific Reports  
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by problems with reciprocal social interaction, repetitive behaviours/narrow interests, and impairments in the social cognition and emotional processing necessary for intention-based moral judgements. The aim of this study was to examine the information used by early adolescents with and without ASD when they judge story protagonists as good or bad. We predicted that adolescents with ASD would use protagonists' behaviour, while typically
more » ... (TD) adolescents would use protagonists' characteristics when making the judgements. In Experiment 1, we measured sentence by sentence reading times and percentages for good or bad judgements. In Experiment 2, two story protagonists were presented and the participants determined which protagonist was better or worse. Experiment 1 results showed that the adolescents with ASD used protagonist behaviours and outcomes, whereas the TD adolescents used protagonist characteristics, behaviours, and outcomes. In Experiment 2, TD adolescents used characteristics information when making "bad" judgements. Taken together, in situations in which participants cannot go back and assess (Experiment 1), and in comparable situations in which all information is available (Experiment 2), adolescents with ASD do not rely on information about individual characteristics when making moral judgements. Moral psychology research has focused on two perspectives or models: Rationalist and intuitionist. The rationalist claims that moral knowledge and moral judgements are the product of a conscious process of reasoning and reflection 1-3 . The intuitionist claims that moral intuitions, such as unconscious moral emotions, occur immediately in situations and directly cause moral judgements 4-7 . In addition, knowing the facts of a situation changes the emotional response and the moral judgement that one makes 8 . For example, anger that a student failed to show up for an exam can turn to sympathy when one discovers that the reason for the absence was a death in the family 9 . Thus, situational as well as conscious and unconscious individual factors should be considered in investigations of moral judgements.
doi:10.1038/srep37875 pmid:27897213 pmcid:PMC5126659 fatcat:hrthalgbafhzpjgqr2aaw6vkce