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Reputation Management: Evidence for Ability But Reduced Propensity in Autism
Autism Research
Abstract
Previous research has reported that autistic adults do not manage their reputation, purportedly due to problems with theory of mind [Izuma, Matsumoto, Camerer, & Adolphs]. The current study aimed to test alternative explanations for this apparent lack of reputation management. Twenty typical and 19 autistic adults donated to charity and to a person, both when alone and when observed. In an additional manipulation, for half of the participants, the observer was also the recipient of their donations, and participants were told that this observer would subsequently have the opportunity to donate to them (motivation condition). This manipulation was designed to encourage an expectation of a reciprocal "tit-for-tat" strategy in the participant, which may motivate participants to change their behavior to receive more donations. The remaining participants were told that the person watching was just observing the procedure (no motivation condition). Our results replicated Izuma et al.'s finding that autistic adults did not donate more to charity when observed. Yet, in the motivation condition, both typical and autistic adults donated significantly more to the observer when watched, although this effect was significantly attenuated in autistic individuals. Results indicate that, while individuals with autism may have the ability to think about reputation, a reduced expectation of reciprocal behavior from others may reduce the degree to which they engage in reputation management. Autism Res 2013, ●●: ●●-●●. © 2013 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
... Some recent studies have evaluated reputation management in autism in relation to theory of mind and social motivation (Cage et al., 2013(Cage et al., , 2016Chevallier, Molesworth, & Happé, 2012;Izuma et al., 2011). When given the option to donate to charity, typical adults tend to make higher donations in the presence of others, indicating a concern for maintaining a good reputation in front of others. ...
... When given the option to donate to charity, typical adults tend to make higher donations in the presence of others, indicating a concern for maintaining a good reputation in front of others. However, on the same task, autistic adults were not affected by the presence of another person (Cage et al., 2013;Izuma et al., 2011). It is important to note that this lower concern about one's reputation in autism is not a result of an inability to understand the reciprocal nature of social relationships. ...
... It is important to note that this lower concern about one's reputation in autism is not a result of an inability to understand the reciprocal nature of social relationships. In the study by Cage et al. (2013) when participants were informed that the observer might donate to the participant, hence a context of potential benefit from social reciprocation, autistic participants modulated their behaviors in a similar fashion to typical people; they made a higher donation to the person who is likely to reciprocate the behavior. These findings are in contrast to what was reported in the explicit reputation management task (Cage et al., 2016) described above, where both typical and autistic participants decided to display their scores on the leader-board more often when they had high scores. ...
People manage their social reputation by selectively sharing achievements, thereby shaping the way others think about them. Autistic traits and social anxiety may have opposing impacts on reputation management. This study aimed to identify the influence of autistic traits and social anxiety on reputation management behavior, independently and in co‐occurrence with one another. Seventy‐seven adults with varying levels of autistic and social anxiety traits completed a novel self‐disclosure task that required them to complete a computerized game and decide whether to disclose their scores to another participant. This design provided a safe social environment for sharing performance outcomes and allowed us to manipulate performance outcomes for participants and set a perceived ‘norm’ of high self‐disclosure. Results showed that participants were more likely to disclose their high than low scores to the other player. Social anxiety reliably predicted the likelihood of disclosing their scores while high autistic traits predicted the likelihood of disclosure only in combination with high social anxiety. Additionally, establishing the norm of high disclosure facilitated self‐disclosure in all the participants. This study shows that social anxiety may influence reputation management via selective self‐disclosure more when co‐occurring with high autistic traits. People with varying levels of autistic traits may not behave differently to maintain a social reputation.
... For instance, Filiz-Ozbay and Ozbay (2014) used the Public Goods game and found that people invest more effort to contribute to public, but not private, goods when someone is observing them. Izuma and colleagues (2011) used the Dictator game (Guala & Mittone, 2010;Kahneman, Knetsch, & Thaler, 1986) as a donation task, where participants receive a sum of money and must decide on repeated trials whether to accept a proposal to share the money with a charity, or reject it and keep all the money (see also Cage, Pellicano, Shah, & Bird, 2013). Results showed that in the presence of a confederate who pretended to monitor the answers, participants decided to accept the proposed sharing more often than when they were alone in the room. ...
... A recent proposal suggests that changes in prosocial behaviour when being watched aim to signal good reputation ( Bradley et al., 2018). Various studies provide support for this hypothesis: participants behave more prosocially in the presence of an audience than in its absence (Cage et al., 2013;Filiz-Ozbay & Ozbay, 2014;Izuma et al., 2011Izuma et al., , 2009. However, these studies have two main limitations: they do not strictly test effects related to the belief that someone can perceive me (i.e. ...
... They found that participants donated money more often while monitored by a confederate than when alone in a room, which can be interpreted as reputation management. Cage and colleagues (Cage et al., 2013) replicated this finding and also found that, when the recipient was an individual (not a charity) who could later reciprocate to the participant, the number of donations was higher in the presence than in the absence of an observer. These studies are clear examples of participants manipulating the information they signal to other people in order to maintain good reputation. ...
Social interactions are characterised by exchanges of a variety of social signals to communicate with other people. A key feature in real-life interactions is that we are in the presence of other people who can see us (audience), and we modulate our behaviour to send and receive signals (audience effect). Although social neuroscience research has traditionally examined how we respond to pictures and videos of humans, second-person neuroscience suggests that interactions with pre-recorded versus live people recruit distinct neurocognitive mechanisms. The aim of this thesis was to investigate which cognitive and neural mechanisms underlie changes in behaviour when being watched, particularly focusing on eye gaze, facial displays and prosocial behaviour as social signals. Using a novel ecologically valid paradigm, the first study showed that the opportunity to signal good reputation is a key modulator of eye gaze and prosocial behaviour. Using the same paradigm, the second study found no evidence to support the hypothesis that audience effects are mediated by an increase in self-referential processing. The third study focused on the time-course of eye gaze and facial displays patterns in relation to speech, both in typical and autistic individuals: contrary to what was expected both groups modulated eye gaze and facial displays according to the belief in being watched and speaker/listener role. Finally, the fourth study tested the role of reciprocity in live interactions: sharing information with a partner modulated eye gaze, facial displays, and brain activity in regions related to mentalising and decision-making. I discuss the theoretical implications of these findings and set out a cognitive model of gaze processing in live interactions. Finally, I outline directions for future research in social neuroscience.
... They found that participants donated money more often while monitored by a confederate than when alone in a room, which can be interpreted as reputation management. Cage and colleagues (Cage, Pellicano, Shah, & Bird, 2013) replicated this finding and also found that, when the recipient was an individual (not a charity) who could later reciprocate to the participant, the number of donations was higher in the presence than in the absence of an observer. These studies are clear examples of participants manipulating the information they signal to other people in order to maintain good reputation. ...
... During the task, we ensured a communicative environment by 1) having videos where the confederate read the questions to the participant, and 2) telling participants to say their choice aloud before entering it in the computer. Based on previous evidence (Cage et al., 2013;Izuma et al., 2011), we hypothesized that the belief in being watched would increase prosocial behaviour of participants across both tasks, because it signals good reputation to the observer. ...
... As a second measure of the audience effect, we used a variation of the Dictator game previously used by Izuma et al. (2011) and Cage et al. (2013). We used a modified version of the payoff matrix used by Cage et al. (2013), in which we reduced the amounts at play to adapt them to our participation fee (see Fig. 2a). ...
When someone is watching you, you may change your behaviour in various ways: this is called the ‘audience effect’. Social behaviours such as acting prosocially or changing gaze patterns may be used as signals of reputation and thus may be particularly prone to audience effects. The present paper aims to test the relationship between prosocial choices, gaze patterns and the feeling of being watched within a novel ecologically valid paradigm, where participants communicate with a video-clip of a confederate and believe she is (or is not) a live feed of a confederate who can see them back. Results show that when participants believe they are watched, they tend to make more prosocial choices and they gaze less to the confederate. We also find that the increase in prosocial behaviour when being watched correlates with social anxiety traits. Moreover, we show for the first time that prosocial choices influence subsequent gaze patterns of participants, although this is true for both live and pre-recorded interactions. Overall, these findings suggest that the opportunity to signal a good reputation to other people is a key modulator of prosocial decisions and eye gaze in live communicative contexts. They further indicate that gaze should be considered as an interactive and dynamic signal.
... In contrast to the TDG, the IDG alters the roles such that all participants assume the role of recipient. Participants are informed that they will receive a specific amount of money and will then face a series of choices regarding whether to donate some or all of this amount to a charity (Izuma et al., 2011) or to an individual (Cage et al., 2013). In this study, each participant was "allocated" 8 RMB (equivalent to $1.13) and was informed of the opportunity to use this money to support charitable donations. ...
... The differences in outcomes across these two dictator game paradigms can be explained through reputational and normative mechanisms. From a reputational perspective, individuals may believe that donations to charities will enhance their social standing (Cage et al., 2013). This belief is anchored in the concept of indirect reciprocity (Nowak and Sigmund, 2005), where individuals who have previously helped others are likely to receive assistance in return. ...
Previous research has not established a significant link between imagined eye cue and altruistic behavior, nor has it verified whether a sense of being seen played a role in it. This study employed a between-subjects design with a single factor (Cue Type: Imagined Eye Cue/Imagined Flower Cue/No Cue) to explore the impact of imagined eye cue on individuals' altruistic behavior in two different dictator games, and also assessed the mediating role of a sense of being seen. It revealed that participants who was presented with imagined eye cue acted more altruistically than those who was presented with imagined flower cue or no cue when the recipient of the dictator game was a charity. Although imagined eye cue strengthened participants' a sense of being seen, this sense did not mediate the relationship between cue type and altruistic behavior. The findings suggest that the imagined eye cue may encourage individuals to donate generously by stimulating their internal social norms. This provides a theoretical rationale for the normative mechanisms underlying the watching eyes effect and explores a more cost-effective and accessible approach for interventions aimed at promoting charitable behavior.
... Individual reputation management is also influenced by social relationships based on partner choice. Cage et al. have found that partner choice affects reputation management in both autistic and typical individuals but has a greater impact on typical individuals [31]. They asserted that the difference in reputation management between autistic and typical individuals may be due to their difference of theory of mind and motivation. ...
... Secondly, this study only discusses the influence of explicit theory of mind on children's reputation management. Some researchers believe that children's implicit theory of mind could also influence their reputation management [31]. Future research should continue to explore the influence of implicit theory of mind on children's reputation management. ...
Young children’s reputation management is closely related to their social development. The purpose of our study is to examine the interaction between theory of mind and partner choice on children’s reputation management. Participants consisted of 270 children who were 3 to 5 years old. First, we measured participants’ theory of mind capabilities using the unexpected location task and unexpected content task and then randomly divided the participants into the control group, non-partner–choice group, and partner-choice group. We measured reputation management by comparing children’s willingness to share and sharing behavior between these groups. The findings are as follows: (1) Children from ages 3 to 5 demonstrated reputation management, and their reputation management followed a significant developmental trend. The reputation management of 4- to 5-year-old children was significantly better than that of 3-year-old children. (2) Scores on the theory of mind tasks positively predicted children’s reputation management. (3) Partner choice affected children’s reputation management. In the partner-choice group, children’s reputation management was more apparent. (4) Partner choice did moderate the relationship between theory of mind and children’s reputation management. In the partner-choice group, theory of mind had a stronger predictive effect on children’s reputation management.
... There are plenty of links between autism and personality. 9 art of the autistic pattern of behavior is characterized by problems with social interaction and communication, so it would not be surprising if autistic people scored lower on Extraversion than neurotypical individuals. Problems comprehending personal cues might cause lower Agreeableness scores, problems with self-control may cause lower Conscientiousness scores, and so on. ...
... Autistic adults tend not to fake answers, however. Studies suggest that austistic adults are less likely to use reputation management compared to neurotypical adults (Cage et al. 2013). This could be due to honesty or limited social cognition or both. ...
Adults with autism suffer from an alarmingly high and increasing unemployment rate. Many companies use pre-employment personality screening tests. These filters likely have disparate impact upon the neurodiverse population, exacerbating this societal problem. This situation puts us in a bind. On the one hand, the tests disproportionately harm a vulnerable group in society. On the other, employers have a right to use personality traits in their decisions and think that personality test scores are predictors of job performance. It is difficult to say whether this negative disparate impact is a case of wrongful discrimination. Nevertheless, focusing on the tests, we’ll show that pre-employment personality tests prey in an unjust way on several features associated with autism. We end by suggesting the contours of some regulation that we deem necessary.
... Even though both groups spontaneously produced more mentalistic than physical statements and produced a similar number of chunks relating to physical traits, our main empirical finding was that the autistic adults produced significantly fewer chunks involving mentalistic language for both the 'self' and 'other' condition, consistent with (Kristen et al., 2014) 'self' findings. This indicates that autistic participants are less likely to represent mental states (White et al., 2011) or have a more general difficulty of understanding of conversational expectations to talk about mental traits, being unaware of what the interviewer expects to hear (Ochs et al., 2004) or being indifferent to conforming to this imposed standard (Cage et al., 2013). Either way, as the differences were present in both 'self' and 'other' If you do not like yourself, you cannot function properly Continue to do something until I reach the target conditions, the difficulty appears to lie in implicitly mentalizing in the same way as non-autistic participants in terms of both theory of own and theory of other mind. ...
... as being about emotion; they certainly did provide feedback, saying that the interview was generally alright. Moreover, autistic individuals may have found the interview questions to be less of an imposition, may have been less aware of the possible negative implications of sharing personal information, and hence may not have attempted to manage their reputation even though possible (Cage et al., 2013;C. D. Frith & Frith, 2008;Izuma et al., 2011). ...
Recent studies on mentalizing have shown that autistic individuals who pass explicit mentalizing tasks may still have difficulties with implicit mentalizing tasks. This study explores implicit mentalizing by examining spontaneous speech that is likely to contain mentalistic expressions. The spontaneous production of meta-statements provides a clear measure for implicit mentalizing that is unlikely to be learned through experience. We examined the self- and other-descriptions of highly verbally able autistic and non-autistic adults in terms of their spontaneous use of mentalistic language and meta-representational utterances through quantitative and qualitative analysis. We devised a hierarchical coding system that allowed us to study the types of statements produced in comparable conditions for the self and for a familiar other. The descriptions of autistic participants revealed less mentalistic content relating to psychological traits and meta-statements. References to physical traits were similar between groups. Within each group, participants produced a similar pattern of types of mental utterance across ‘self’ and ‘other’ conditions. This suggests that autistic individuals show a unique pattern of mental-state-representation for both self and other. Meta-statements add a degree of complexity to self- and other-descriptions and to the understanding of mental states; their reduction in autism provides evidence for implicit mentalizing difficulties.
Lay abstract
Autistic people can have difficulties in understanding non-autistic people’s mental states such as beliefs, emotions and intentions. Although autistic adults may learn to overcome difficulties in understanding of explicit (overt) mental states, they may nevertheless struggle with implicit (indirect) understanding of mental states. This study explores how spontaneous language is used in order to specifically point to this implicit (indirect) understanding of mental states. In particular, our study compares the spontaneous statements that were used in descriptions of oneself and a familiar other person. Here, we found that autistic and non-autistic adults were comparable in the number of statements about physical traits they made. In contrast, non-autistic adults made more statements about mentalistic traits (about the mental including psychological traits, relationship traits and statements reflecting about these) both for the self and the other. Non-autistic and autistic adults showed no difference in the number of statements about relationships but in the number of statements about psychological traits and especially in the statements reflecting on these. Each group showed a similar pattern of kinds of statements for the self and for the other person. This suggests that autistic individuals show the same unique pattern of description in mentalistic terms for the self and another person. This study also indicates that investigating spontaneous use of language, especially for statements reflecting about mental states, enables us to look into difficulties with implicit (indirect) understanding of mental states.
... 4,15 Although camouflaging may be a coping strategy that helps autistic individuals navigate difficult social environments, 12 many negative side effects of camouflaging have been reported. [6][7][8]16,17 Many autistic individuals see camouflaging as a way to make friends and form romantic attachments, however, there are harmful effects of camouflaging. 6 Autistic individuals report that when they camouflage, it influences their selfidentity, making it difficult for them to keep track of their authentic self. ...
... Since autistic individuals do not appear to be struggling, they may not receive the support and resources they need to effectively manage their autistic traits, likely resulting in high rates of stress, anxiety, and depression. 6,7,16,17 It is clear that many autistic individuals camouflage in an attempt to improve their success in social situations. It has been reported that camouflaging is extremely effortful and may put autistic individuals at risk for psychological harm. ...
Background:
Autistic individuals often experience difficulties in social settings. Although autistic individuals may not intuitively know the "typical" way to behave in social settings, many autistic individuals have a desire to fit in so they develop techniques to "camouflage" their autistic traits. Although camouflaging may help individuals to navigate social environments, camouflaging has also been shown to produce negative psychological outcomes. This study aims to explore whether this "camouflaging" strategy is associated with poor social competence, an aspect of the autism diagnosis.
Methods:
In this study, 247 nonautistic adults completed the Multidimensional Social Competence Scale (MSCS) to assess their social competence, and the Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire (CAT-Q) to assess the extent to which they used strategies to compensate or mask behaviors characteristic of autism in social settings.
Results:
We found that over and above IQ, gender, and executive functioning scores, social competence (MSCS) scores reliably predicted the extent to which nonautistic individuals camouflaged, accounting for 25% of the variance in CAT-Q scores. Importantly, even when autistic traits were controlled for, social competence was still able to account for additional variance in CAT-Q scores.
Conclusion:
These results suggest that low social competency in nonautistic adults predicts camouflaging as a strategy in social situations. Given these camouflaging behaviors are being performed in an attempt to comply with an environmental demand to behave in a particular manner, these results also highlight the importance of conceptualizing the social challenges that autistic and nonautistic individuals face in a bidirectional manner, where the onus is not solely on the individual to comply with social conventions but also on society to accommodate diverse behavioral traits.
Lay summary:
Why was this study done?: Some autistic individuals try to hide their autistic traits to "fit in" with others, referred to as "camouflaging." Nonautistic adults also report camouflaging, but it is unclear whether this camouflaging is related to social difficulties that are not specific to autism. No research has been conducted to examine the relationship between social competence and camouflaging in nonautistic adults.What was the purpose of this study?: To further understand the factors that are related to camouflaging behaviors. More specifically, whether social abilities, and/or autism characteristics, are related to whether nonautistic adults camouflage.What did the researchers do?: We had 257 nonautistic adults complete various questionnaires, including ones that asked them about their camouflaging behaviors and social abilities. We examined the relationships between the scores from these questionnaires and the influence of other factors such as gender, intelligence, and executive functioning.What were the results of the study?: We found that both social abilities and autistic traits were related to camouflaging behaviors. Indeed, nonautistic adults who had poor social skills, and more autistic traits, engaged in more camouflaging. Social skills were associated with camouflaging even after we considered factors such as gender, intelligence, and executive functioning.What do these findings add to what was already known?: These findings help us understand camouflaging by demonstrating that it may be a common response to social difficulties in nonautistic, as well as autistic, adults. These results also indicate that camouflaging is related to low social competency, not just autism characteristics.What are the potential weaknesses in the study?: The participants in our study completed questionnaires through which they were required to pick from set answers, rather than describe their experiences. We may be missing important qualitative differences in the way nonautistic adults camouflage compared with autistic adults.How will these findings help autistic adults now or in the future?: By comparing what is shared and what is unique with nonautistic people who share traits with autistic people, a more precise definition and study of camouflaging behavior are possible. Rather than see camouflaging as a phenomenon that occurs exclusively in autistic people because of their disability, it may be that both autistic and nonautistic people use camouflaging when they perceive themselves to lack the necessary social competencies that are expected within their social contexts. Because both autistic traits and social competency are related to camouflaging behavior, we can begin to think about how to tease apart which characteristics are more likely to evoke camouflaging in autistic individuals and how this may be similar or different in nonautistic individuals. This knowledge will ultimately contribute to the development of more tailored approaches to prevent and/or reduce the negative impact of camouflaging behaviors for autistic adults.
... Yang and Baillargeon (2013) found that heightened autistic traits were associated with less endorsement of lying to protect others' feelings. Indeed, autistic people tend to act more honestly than non-autistic people even when doing so impedes social success (e.g., Cage, Pellicano, Shah, & Bird, 2013;Chevallier, Molesworth, & Happé, 2012;Izuma et al., 2011;Scheeren et al., 2010;Strunz et al., 2015;Yafai, Verrier, & Reidy, 2014). Given that the BAP is defined as sub-clinical characteristics of autism, characteristics associated with the BAP should also be apparent among people with a diagnosis of autism. ...
... and only the SRS-brief was associated with sensory symptoms (a known aspect of the BAP) and reduced social desirability bias (a potential aspect of the BAP). Although associations between survey measures and susceptibility to the social desirability bias are often considered a design flaw, a growing body of literature indicates that autism, and autistic traits more generally, may be associated with heightened honesty and reduced susceptibility to the social desirability bias (e.g., Cage et al., 2013;Chevallier et al., 2012;Izuma et al., 2011;Scheeren et al., 2010;Strunz et al., 2015;Yafai et al., 2014;Yang & Baillargeon, 2013). Therefore, findings suggest that the SRS-brief is a more reliable and valid BAP measure than the AQ-Short. ...
Are people with heightened autistic traits less likely to help other people? Recent research suggests that heightened autistic traits are associated with reduced self-reported prosocial behavior among college students. However, the growing literature examining sub-clinical traits associated with autism, or the Broader Autism Phenotype (BAP), among college students has invested insufficient attention in replication of findings, potential interrelationships between constructs, or the degree to which social desirability bias may contribute to findings. To identify replicable aspects of the BAP, we administered a battery of measures to 391 undergraduate students. Replicating prior work, findings suggested that self-reported difficulties understanding the self and others (but not less feeling for others) and sensory atypicalities are core aspects of the BAP. Reduced social desirability bias was also associated with the BAP. Prior associations between reduced prosocial tendencies and the BAP were not replicated. Findings highlight the importance of assessing multiple potential aspects of the BAP, particularly reduced susceptibility to the social desirability bias, when using self-report measures.
... Typical adults prioritized their own social reputations in their charity giving, increasing their donations when they were (vs. weren't) observed, whereas autistic adults did not behave the same way, instead making charitable decisions independently of social reputation concerns (Izuma et al. 2011; see also Cage et al. 2013). Again the data reported in these and other studies are usefully informative about how autistics are atypical in the content and methods of their social interests. ...
... Despite their empathy, interest in relationships, and reduced prejudice, autistic people suffer exceptional rates of victimization (Sreckovic et al. 2014), especially when they initiate social interaction, have higher skills, or appear more typical (Kapp 2018). These hardships may justifiably lead autistic youth to develop low expectations for social reciprocity (Cage et al. 2013). Similarly, autistic adults report attempting to "pass" as neurotypical to fit in and make connections (Hull et al. 2017), but they experience more depression (Cage et al. 2018) and suicidality . ...
Stepping away from a normocentric understanding of autism goes beyond questioning the supposed lack of social motivation of autistic people. It evokes subversion of the prevalence of intellectual disability even in non-verbal autism. It also challenges the perceived purposelessness of some restricted interests and repetitive behaviors, and instead interprets them as legitimate exploratory and learning-associated manifestations.
... Typical adults prioritized their own social reputations in their charity giving, increasing their donations when they were (vs. weren't) observed, whereas autistic adults did not behave the same way, instead making charitable decisions independently of social reputation concerns (Izuma et al. 2011; see also Cage et al. 2013). Again the data reported in these and other studies are usefully informative about how autistics are atypical in the content and methods of their social interests. ...
... Despite their empathy, interest in relationships, and reduced prejudice, autistic people suffer exceptional rates of victimization (Sreckovic et al. 2014), especially when they initiate social interaction, have higher skills, or appear more typical (Kapp 2018). These hardships may justifiably lead autistic youth to develop low expectations for social reciprocity (Cage et al. 2013). Similarly, autistic adults report attempting to "pass" as neurotypical to fit in and make connections (Hull et al. 2017), but they experience more depression (Cage et al. 2018) and suicidality . ...
The arguments offered by Jaswal & Akhtar to counter the social motivation theory (SMT) do not appear to be directly related to the SMT tenets and predictions, seem to not be empirically testable, and are inconsistent with empirical evidence. To evaluate the merits and shortcomings of the SMT and identify scientifically testable alternatives, advances are needed on the conceptualization and operationalization of social motivation across diagnostic boundaries.
... Typical adults prioritized their own social reputations in their charity giving, increasing their donations when they were (vs. weren't) observed, whereas autistic adults did not behave the same way, instead making charitable decisions independently of social reputation concerns (Izuma et al. 2011; see also Cage et al. 2013). Again the data reported in these and other studies are usefully informative about how autistics are atypical in the content and methods of their social interests. ...
... Despite their empathy, interest in relationships, and reduced prejudice, autistic people suffer exceptional rates of victimization (Sreckovic et al. 2014), especially when they initiate social interaction, have higher skills, or appear more typical (Kapp 2018). These hardships may justifiably lead autistic youth to develop low expectations for social reciprocity (Cage et al. 2013). Similarly, autistic adults report attempting to "pass" as neurotypical to fit in and make connections (Hull et al. 2017), but they experience more depression (Cage et al. 2018) and suicidality . ...
A lower tendency to influence and be influenced by their social environment seems almost self-evident in autism. However, a closer look at differences and similarities between autistic and non-autistic individuals suggests that some basic mechanisms involved in social influence might be intact in autism, whereas atypical responses point to differences in more sophisticated recursive social strategies, such as reputation management.
... Typical adults prioritized their own social reputations in their charity giving, increasing their donations when they were (vs. weren't) observed, whereas autistic adults did not behave the same way, instead making charitable decisions independently of social reputation concerns (Izuma et al. 2011; see also Cage et al. 2013). Again the data reported in these and other studies are usefully informative about how autistics are atypical in the content and methods of their social interests. ...
... Despite their empathy, interest in relationships, and reduced prejudice, autistic people suffer exceptional rates of victimization (Sreckovic et al. 2014), especially when they initiate social interaction, have higher skills, or appear more typical (Kapp 2018). These hardships may justifiably lead autistic youth to develop low expectations for social reciprocity (Cage et al. 2013). Similarly, autistic adults report attempting to "pass" as neurotypical to fit in and make connections (Hull et al. 2017), but they experience more depression (Cage et al. 2018) and suicidality . ...
Jaswal & Akhtar challenge the notion that autistic people have diminished social motivation, prompted in part by a desire to take autistic testimony seriously. We applaud their analysis and go further to suggest that future research could be enhanced by involving autistic people directly in the research process.
... Typical adults prioritized their own social reputations in their charity giving, increasing their donations when they were (vs. weren't) observed, whereas autistic adults did not behave the same way, instead making charitable decisions independently of social reputation concerns (Izuma et al. 2011; see also Cage et al. 2013). Again the data reported in these and other studies are usefully informative about how autistics are atypical in the content and methods of their social interests. ...
... Despite their empathy, interest in relationships, and reduced prejudice, autistic people suffer exceptional rates of victimization (Sreckovic et al. 2014), especially when they initiate social interaction, have higher skills, or appear more typical (Kapp 2018). These hardships may justifiably lead autistic youth to develop low expectations for social reciprocity (Cage et al. 2013). Similarly, autistic adults report attempting to "pass" as neurotypical to fit in and make connections (Hull et al. 2017), but they experience more depression (Cage et al. 2018) and suicidality . ...
Do autistic people read autistic behavior in the same way as neurotypical observers? We consider evidence that suggests autistic-to-autistic interactions demonstrate enabling norms and question the possibilities for neurotypical researchers to learn from autistic social appraisal.
... Typical adults prioritized their own social reputations in their charity giving, increasing their donations when they were (vs. weren't) observed, whereas autistic adults did not behave the same way, instead making charitable decisions independently of social reputation concerns (Izuma et al. 2011; see also Cage et al. 2013). Again the data reported in these and other studies are usefully informative about how autistics are atypical in the content and methods of their social interests. ...
... Despite their empathy, interest in relationships, and reduced prejudice, autistic people suffer exceptional rates of victimization (Sreckovic et al. 2014), especially when they initiate social interaction, have higher skills, or appear more typical (Kapp 2018). These hardships may justifiably lead autistic youth to develop low expectations for social reciprocity (Cage et al. 2013). Similarly, autistic adults report attempting to "pass" as neurotypical to fit in and make connections (Hull et al. 2017), but they experience more depression (Cage et al. 2018) and suicidality . ...
We provide support from attachment research to the argument that children with autism only appear to lack social motivation. This research has shown that the attachment system of children with autism is intact, and one-half form secure attachments. This is illustrated with an observation of a young child with autism during a separation and reunion observation with his mother.
... Typical adults prioritized their own social reputations in their charity giving, increasing their donations when they were (vs. weren't) observed, whereas autistic adults did not behave the same way, instead making charitable decisions independently of social reputation concerns (Izuma et al. 2011; see also Cage et al. 2013). Again the data reported in these and other studies are usefully informative about how autistics are atypical in the content and methods of their social interests. ...
... Despite their empathy, interest in relationships, and reduced prejudice, autistic people suffer exceptional rates of victimization (Sreckovic et al. 2014), especially when they initiate social interaction, have higher skills, or appear more typical (Kapp 2018). These hardships may justifiably lead autistic youth to develop low expectations for social reciprocity (Cage et al. 2013). Similarly, autistic adults report attempting to "pass" as neurotypical to fit in and make connections (Hull et al. 2017), but they experience more depression (Cage et al. 2018) and suicidality . ...
In response to the 32 commentaries, we clarify and extend two of the central arguments in our target article: (1) Social motivation is a dynamic, emergent process, not a static characteristic of individuals, and (2) autistic perspectives are essential to the study of autistic social motivation. We elaborate on how taking these two arguments seriously can contribute to a more accurate, humane, and useful science of autism.
... Typical adults prioritized their own social reputations in their charity giving, increasing their donations when they were (vs. weren't) observed, whereas autistic adults did not behave the same way, instead making charitable decisions independently of social reputation concerns (Izuma et al. 2011; see also Cage et al. 2013). Again the data reported in these and other studies are usefully informative about how autistics are atypical in the content and methods of their social interests. ...
... Despite their empathy, interest in relationships, and reduced prejudice, autistic people suffer exceptional rates of victimization (Sreckovic et al. 2014), especially when they initiate social interaction, have higher skills, or appear more typical (Kapp 2018). These hardships may justifiably lead autistic youth to develop low expectations for social reciprocity (Cage et al. 2013). Similarly, autistic adults report attempting to "pass" as neurotypical to fit in and make connections (Hull et al. 2017), but they experience more depression (Cage et al. 2018) and suicidality . ...
We argue that understanding of autism can be strengthened by increasing involvement of autistic individuals as researchers and by exploring cascading impacts of early sensory, perceptual, attentional, and motor atypicalities on social and communicative developmental trajectories. Participatory action research that includes diverse participants or researchers may help combat stigma while expanding research foci to better address autistic people’s needs.
... While it is clear from prior work that individuals utilize strategies to maintain and manage their reputation, little research has been done to assess individual-level variability in concern for reputation. Although many would argue that pursuit of reputation is inherent to any person's goals, it would be erroneous to suggest that individuals do not differ in the extent to which reputation is important to their daily lives, with evidence suggesting that evn those who certain social deficits still vary int heir concern for reputation (Cage et al., 2013;Chevallier et al, 2012). Just as the drive to create and maintain strong, meaningful interpersonal relationships (i.e., need to belong; see Baumeister & Leary, 1995) varies considerably between individuals (Gere & Macdonald, 2010;Leary et al., 2013), one might expect that concern for reputation differs between individuals as well. ...
Reputations serve an important function in regulating and motivating human behavior. From peer groups to work settings, concerns for one’s reputation can contribute to both positive and negative outcomes. However, previous work has yet to create and validate a measurement tool for capturing the different components of reputation concern. The current study investigated the validity and reliability of a multi-faceted reputation concern scale. Using data from 2,702 participants across five different sources, the 24-item Reputation Concern (RC) scale was assessed alongside a set of convergent and divergent validity indicators. Results provided evidence for a 4-factor solution (reputation stress, cognition, behaviors, and collective concern), supporting the subscales of the RC measure. Furthermore, invariance testing showed support for partial strict invariance between males and females, with latent means showing male’s higher cognition and behavior subscale scores than females, although male stress scores were significantly lower than that of females. This work provides the first step in establishing a trustworthy RC measure, although cross-cultural validation is still needed.
... For example, due to the stereotypical assumption of reduced social interest, non-autistic individuals might have lower expectations of inclusion and social reciprocity in their interactions with autistic people 20 . In turn, this leads to higher expectations of negative judgements in autistic adults, including being rejected by others. ...
Autistic people frequently experience negative judgements from non-autistic people, often fuelled by misconceptions that autistic people lack empathy. Understanding responses to negative social judgement among autistic people is crucial because of the potential negative impact on wellbeing and future interactions. We investigated behavioural and psychophysiological indices of social rejection in 20 autistic (AUT; 11 males) and 40 non-autistic (N-AUT; 21 males) university students. Participants completed the Social Judgement Task (SJT) where they predicted whether they were liked by another person, then received feedback on whether those evaluations were correct. Participants also completed an Age Judgement Task (AJT) where they estimated the age of the pictured person. The AUT group had lower positive expectation scores, meaning less tendency to predict being liked. The N-AUT group showed a transient cardiac slowing to unexpected social rejection, supporting the role of parasympathetic nervous system in regulating social rejection. In contrast, the AUT group did not differentiate between unexpected social rejection in the SJT and general negative feedback in the AJT. In both groups, higher social anxiety predicted greater tendency to anticipate rejection from others. These findings support Milton’s double empathy theory by showing the role of non-autistic community in the experiences of autistic people.
... In contrast, autistic participants were not affected by the presence of an observer in this task (Izuma et al., 2011). Similarly, evidence indicates that autistic children and adults are less responsive to notions of reputation management compared with their neurotypical counterparts (Cage et al., 2013). ...
Although the bystander effect is one of the most important findings in the psychological literature, researchers have not explored whether autistic individuals are prone to the bystander effect. The present research examines whether autistic employees are more likely to report issues or concerns in an organization's systems and practices that are inefficient or dysfunctional. By bringing attention to these issues, autistic employees may foster opportunities to improve organizational performance, leading to the development of a more adaptive, high performing, and ethical culture. Thirty‐three autistic employees and 34 nonautistic employees completed an online survey to determine whether employees on the autism spectrum (1) are more likely to report they would voice concerns about organizational dysfunctions, (2) are less likely to report they were influenced by the number of other witnesses to the dysfunction, (3) if they do not voice concerns, are more likely to acknowledge the influence of other people on the decision, (4) are less likely to formulate “elaborate rationales” for their decisions to intervene or not, and (5) whether any differences between autistic and nonautistic employees with regards to the first two hypotheses, intervention likelihood and degree of influence, are moderated by individual differences in camouflaging. Results indicate that autistic employees may be less susceptible to the bystander effect than nonautistic employees. As a result, autistic employees may contribute to improvements in organizational performance because they are more likely to identify and report inefficient processes and dysfunctional practices when they witness them. These preliminary findings suggesting potential benefits of neurodiversity in the workplace are promising. However, further research is required.
... In addition, we argue that a reduced sensitivity to social information when sharing money in autistic adults could also underly our effects. Whereas neurotypical individuals give more money when being observed by others, donation behaviour in autism is less influenced by audience effects (the increase in generosity usually shown by neurotypical participants when being observed by others) potentially due to differences in reputation management (Cage et al., 2013;Frith & Frith, 2011;Izuma et al., 2011). Moreover, Ikuse et al. (2018) found that autistic adults distributed more money in an ultimatum game and this greater generosity was positively associated with AQ scores. ...
Sharing resources is fundamental for human cooperation and survival. People tend to share resources more with individuals they feel close to compared to those who are more socially distant. This decline in generosity at increasing social distance is called social discounting and is influenced by both social traits and abilities, such as empathy, and non-social psychological factors, such as decision-making biases. People who receive a diagnosis of autism show differences in social interaction as well as displaying differences in non-social domains, such as more restricted and repetitive behaviours. We investigated social discounting in autism and found that autistic adults were more generous than neurotypical participants, which was driven by greater generosity to socially distant others. Crucially, we also investigated framing effects during prosocial decision-making. Autistic participants were less susceptible to whether decisions were framed as causing monetary gains, compared to preventing monetary losses, for the potential recipient. Our results support the view of ‘enhanced rationality’ in autism as participants’ prosocial decisions were less influenced by potential biasing information, such as the closeness of the recipient or how choices were framed. Therefore, the differences seen in autism, as well as posing certain challenges, can also have prosocial consequences.
Lay abstract
Autistic people show differences in their social behaviour. But how autism affects decisions to share resources, an important part of cooperation, was previously unclear. In our study, participants made decisions about how to share money with different people, including people they felt close to, such as a friend, and people they felt less close to, such as a stranger. We found that compared to a group of non-autistic participants, autistic adults shared more money overall and this was driven by greater generosity to strangers. The results suggest that autistic adults were more generous because they made fair decisions (an equal split of the money) more consistently regardless of how close they felt to the person they were sharing with. By showing that autistic adults display greater generosity, our results could help to change public perceptions of autism and potentially improve opportunities for autistic people.
... Here, it seems that autistic peo ple might approach decision making differently to non autistic people 183,184 . Autistic adults make more logically consistent, rational decisions 185 , are more cir cumspect in their decision making, sample more infor mation prior to making a decision 186 , are less susceptible to social influence 187 and are more deliberative in their reasoning 188,189 . ...
There is little comprehensive research into autistic adulthood, and even less into the services and supports that are most likely to foster flourishing adult autistic lives. This limited research is partly because autism is largely conceived as a condition of childhood, but this focus of research has also resulted from the orthodox scientific approach to autism, which conceptualizes autistic experience almost entirely as a series of biologically derived functional deficits. Approaching autism in this way severely limits what is known about this neurodevelopmental difference, how research is conducted and the services and supports available. In this Review, we adopt an alternative research strategy: we apply Martha Nussbaum’s capabilities approach, which focuses on ten core elements of a thriving human life, to research on autistic adulthood. In doing so, we identify areas where autistic adults thrive and where they often struggle, and highlight issues to which researchers, clinicians and policymakers should respond. The resulting picture is far more complex than conventional accounts of autism imply. It also reveals the importance of engaging autistic adults directly in the research process to make progress towards genuinely knowing autism and supporting flourishing autistic lives. The focus on functional deficits in conventional autism research constrains understanding of autistic lives. In this Review, Pellicano et al. appraise research on autistic adulthood through a capabilities lens to identify areas where autistic adults thrive, and where more research and services are needed to enhance their quality of life.
... Wider descriptions of this, for example using terms of self-presentation, involve motivations to build public reputation, which may differ to private impressions of abilities (Leary & Kowalski, 1990). This considered, research by Cage, Pellicano, Shah and Bird (2013) identify that these strategies are used less often, and to a lesser degree in samples of autistic individuals. This does not however negate the higher levels of camouflaging in samples of autistic individuals compared to those without (Hull et al., 2018). ...
Surfacing the Perspective of Autistic Girls Aged Between Thirteen and Eighteen Within
a Complex Social Discourse on Autism: A Qualitative Inquiry
... 5,6 Due to ongoing conceptual discussions, 6,7 we use the term masking in this paper, to respect the term which the autistic community tends to use most often. 4 While many people, including autistic people, will try to maintain a positive reputation, 8 masking goes beyond everyday reputation management as it involves the concealment of a stigmatised identity, and presenting as though one does not have that identity. Although there may be unique aspects of autistic masking, 6 similar experiences have been reported for other people with different stigmatised identities or experiences, for example, people who stutter, 9 people with social anxiety, 10-12 chronic pain, 13 chronic illness, 14,15 and sexual and gender minorities. ...
Background:
Masking involves blending in or covering a stigmatized identity, to avoid discrimination and to "pass" within society. Autistic people often report masking, both intentionally and unintentionally, to get by in social situations. Autistic people who report high rates of masking also tend to experience poorer mental health. It is important we understand whether there are variables that can protect against the negative effects of masking. One such potential variable is autistic community connectedness (ACC)-being part of and belonging to the autistic community. Past research suggests there are benefits for autistic people socially connecting with other autistic people. We investigated whether ACC could moderate the relationship between masking and wellbeing.
Methods:
One hundred ninety-six autistic people completed an online survey including measures of ACC, masking, and mental wellbeing. We used moderation analysis to test whether ACC acted as a buffer between masking and wellbeing.
Results:
Higher self-reported masking related to poorer mental wellbeing. Higher ACC related to more positive wellbeing. Higher ACC correlated with more masking. However, there was no interaction effect, and ACC did not moderate the relationship between masking and wellbeing.
Conclusions:
Although ACC did relate to more positive mental wellbeing overall, it did not moderate the negative relationship between masking and wellbeing. If masking relates to the prejudice faced by autistic people, those with greater attachment to the autistic community may also be more aware of discrimination against their community. Furthermore, autistic people who are more connected might experience a higher salience of masking when moving between autistic and nonautistic settings. Tackling prejudice toward autistic people is critical in helping to reduce the negative effects associated with masking, and we must endeavor to change perceptions and increase inclusion of autistic people.
... 5,6 Due to ongoing discussions about the conceptualisation of 'masking', 6,7 we mostly use the term masking in this paper, to respect the term which the autistic community tends to use most often. 4 While many people, including autistic people, will try to maintain a positive reputation, 8 masking goes beyond everyday reputation management as it involves the concealment of a stigmatised identity, and presenting the self as though one does not have that identity. Although there may be unique aspects of autistic masking, 6 similar experiences have been reported for a range of other people with different stigmatised identities or experiences, for example, people who stutter, 9 people with social anxiety, 10-12 chronic pain, 13 chronic illness, 14,15 and sexual and gender minorities. ...
Background: Masking or camouflaging involves blending in or covering a stigmatised identity, to avoid discrimination and ‘pass’ within society. Autistic people often report masking, both intentionally and unintentionally, to get by in social situations. Autistic people who report high rates of masking also tend to experience poorer mental health. It is important we understand whether there are variables which can protect against the negative effects of masking. One such potential variable is autistic community connectedness – being part of and belonging to the autistic community. Past research suggests autistic people benefit from being socially connected to other autistic people. We investigated whether autistic community connectedness could moderate the relationship between masking and wellbeing.Methods: One hundred and ninety-six autistic people completed an online survey including measures of autistic community connectedness, camouflaging autistic traits and mental wellbeing. We used moderation regression analysis to test whether autistic community connectedness acted as a buffer between masking and wellbeing.Results: Higher self-reported masking related to poorer mental wellbeing. Higher autistic community connectedness related to more positive wellbeing. Higher autistic community connectedness correlated with more masking. However, there was no interaction effect, and autistic community connectedness did not moderate the relationship between masking and wellbeing. Conclusions: Although autistic community connectedness did relate to more positive mental wellbeing overall, it did not moderate the negative relationship between masking and wellbeing. If masking relates to the prejudice faced by autistic people, those with greater attachment to the autistic community may also be more aware of discrimination against their community. Further, autistic people who are more connected might experience a higher salience of masking when moving between autistic and non-autistic settings. Tackling prejudice towards autistic people is critical in helping to protect autistic people against masking, and we must endeavour to change perceptions and increase inclusion of autistic people.
... [36]), special populations that lack some of these cognitive mechanisms (e.g. [151,152]) or online networks where one cannot use these mechanisms. Non-human studies could artificially grant these abilities to non-humans, for example, by dissociating cooperative investments from ability to delay gratification (cf. ...
Humans care about having a positive reputation, which may prompt them to help in scenarios where the return benefits are not obvious. Various game-theoretical models support the hypothesis that concern for reputation may stabilize cooperation beyond kin, pairs or small groups. However, such models are not explicit about the underlying psychological mechanisms that support reputation-based cooperation. These models therefore cannot account for the apparent rarity of reputation-based cooperation in other species. Here, we identify the cognitive mechanisms that may support reputation-based cooperation in the absence of language. We argue that a large working memory enhances the ability to delay gratification, to understand others' mental states (which allows for perspective-taking and attribution of intentions) and to create and follow norms, which are key building blocks for increasingly complex reputation-based cooperation. We review the existing evidence for the appearance of these processes during human ontogeny as well as their presence in non-human apes and other vertebrates. Based on this review, we predict that most non-human species are cognitively constrained to show only simple forms of reputation-based cooperation.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘The language of cooperation: reputation and honest signalling’.
... A second distinction between tests of ToM that may be of theoretical interest is between those that measure the ability to infer accurately the mental states of others, and those that measure the propensity to make mental state inferences (e.g., Birch & Bloom, 2004;Cage, Pellicano, Shah, & Bird, 2013;Conway et al., 2019;Epley et al., 2004;Happé, Cook, & Bird, 2017). One of the defining features of alexithymia is an externally-oriented thinking style, i.e. a tendency to avoid thinking about internal states and instead to focus thoughts on external matters. ...
Theory of Mind (ToM), the ability to represent the mental states of oneself and others, is an essential social skill disrupted across many psychiatric conditions. The transdiagnostic nature of ToM impairment means it is plausible that ToM impairment is related to alexithymia (difficulties identifying and describing one’s own emotions), as alexithymia is seen across psychiatric conditions. Whilst many studies have examined links between alexithymia and ToM, results are mixed. Therefore, the purpose of this systematic review is to provide a taxonomy of ToM tests and assess their relationship with alexithymia. Tests are grouped according to whether they assess propensity to engage spontaneously in ToM or accuracy of ToM inferences, with tests further subdivided into those that do, and do not, require emotion recognition. A review of 63 suitable studies suggests that alexithymia is often associated with reduced ToM, and inaccurate ToM when tasks require emotion recognition. This latter finding appears due to impaired emotion recognition, rather than ToM impairment per se. Further directions and considerations for future research are discussed.
... We investigated how alexithymic and autistic traits impair prosocial aspects of social interaction, whereas others investigated how alexithymic and autistic traits impair emotional aspects of social cognition (Bird et al., 2010;Cook et al., 2013;Oakley et al., 2016;Silani et al., 2008). Although these investigations focused on impairments in different social domains, they nonetheless help to explain why some but not all autistic individuals show impairments in emotion recognition (Adolphs et al., 2001;Humphreys et al., 2007;Otsuka et al., 2017), empathetic responding (Dziobek et al., 2008;Hadjikhani et al., 2014;Rogers et al., 2007) and prosocial acting (Cage et al., , 2013;Ikuse et al., 2018;Izuma et al., 2011). Autistic individuals with high levels of alexithymia are more likely to display these and other impairments than autistic individuals with low levels of alexithymia . ...
Social impairments are a core feature of autism-spectrum disorders. However, there is a considerable variability in these impairments. Most autistic individuals show large impairments in social functioning but some autistic individuals show small impairments in social functioning. The variability of these impairments has been attributed to the presence or absence of alexithymia. To address this issue, we capitalized on the fact that alexithymic and autistic traits are broadly distributed in the population. This allowed us to investigate how alexithymic and autistic traits affect social functioning in healthy individuals. Healthy individuals showed impairments on a resource-allocation task that were due to alexithymic but not autistic traits. These findings suggest that alexithymic rather than autistic traits impair prosocial behavior across the autism-spectrum.
... Cage, Bird, and Pellicano 2016)-that for them, face was not, after all, such an all-pervasive concern as it seems to be for NT interactants. This interpretation would be in line with the study by Scheeren and colleagues (2010), who found that some participants with ASD know very well what kind of self-presentation is expected from them, but they prefer to be veridical rather than adhering to audience preferences (see also Cage et al. 2013). Some situations might exist, such as psychotherapy contexts, where NT individuals are also expected to drop their defenses and share their genuine feelings without resorting to selfserving facework. ...
Erving Goffman has argued that the threat of losing one's face is an omnirelevant concern that penetrates all actions in encounters. However, studies have shown that compared with neurotypical individuals, persons diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder can be less preoccupied with how others perceive them and thus possibly less concerned of face in interaction. Drawing on a data set of Finnish quasinatural conversations, we use the means of conversation analysis to compare the practices of facework in storytelling sequences involving neurotypical (NT) participants and participants diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome (AS). We found differences in the ways in which the AS and NT participants in our data managed face threats in interaction, where they spontaneously assumed the roles of both storytellers and story recipients. We discuss our findings in relation to theories of self in interaction, with an aim to illuminate both typical and atypical interactional practices of facework.
... This is commensurate with evidence that some adolescents on the autism spectrum may be less concerned about being "cool" and whether others like them [Cage, Bird, & Pellicano, 2016]. Findings also show that autistic adults are less likely to alter their behavior when observed by others, indicating a potential attenuation of reputation management [Cage, Pellicano, Shah, & Bird, 2013]. It could also be an intentional or reactionary decision to not care what peers think of them. ...
Anxiety commonly occurs among youth on the autism spectrum, yet measurement of anxiety in this population is complicated by a number of factors, including potentially overlapping symptomatology, the child's intellectual functioning, and changes in anxiety across development. Moreover, few studies have examined the psychometric properties of anxiety measures in this population, and no study to date has tested whether there are systematic differences in the measurement of anxiety, or differential item functioning (DIF), across the high degree of heterogeneity and the developmental course of autism. To test this possibility, data were combined across multiple studies using the National Database for Autism Research, an NIH‐funded data repository. Parent‐report on the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Disorders (SCARED) and Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ) were used as measures of anxiety and autism features, respectively. A confirmatory factor analysis indicated good fit of the literature standard five‐factor structure. Moderated nonlinear factor analysis (MNLFA) revealed multiple items with intercept and loading DIF based on level of autism features, IQ, and age, especially for items related to social behavior. Therefore, although the measure's factor structure is consistent with that found in the general population, the SCARED may not capture differences in anxiety equivalently for all children on the spectrum and across their development. Clinicians and researchers need to be especially vigilant in measuring anxiety symptoms in children with autism by removing items flagged for DIF from the SCARED and/or by using multiple measures and informants.
Lay Abstract
Autistic youth often experience clinical levels of anxiety. Many tools used to measure anxiety were developed for the general population, but not for use with autistic youth. This study found that the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Disorders (SCARED) measures the same five dimensions of anxiety as in the general population. Parents, however, may respond differently to questions on the SCARED based on their child's autism features, intellectual functioning, and age, which impacts our ability to accurately measure anxiety among autistic youth.
... Grainger et al., 2016; see also Williams, 2010). Recent evidence also indicates that autistic adults are less accurate at predicting how they are perceived by others (Sasson et al., 2018), while others argue that autism is marked by diminished social motivation and reduced concern for reputation management (Cage et al., 2013;Chevallier et al., 2012). Such differences are likely to have significant negative impacts in socially mediated highstakes contexts such as job interviews. ...
Despite possessing valuable skills, social communication differences mean that autistic people are frequently disadvantaged in job interviews. We examined how autistic and non-autistic adults compared on standard (unmodified) job interview questions, and then used these findings to develop and evaluate supportive adaptations to questions. Fifty adults (25 autistic, 25 non-autistic) took part in two mock job interviews. Interview 1 provided a baseline measure of performance when answering typical, unmodified interview questions. Employment experts (unaware of participants’ autism diagnoses) rated all interviewees on question-specific performance and overall impressions and then provided feedback about how interviewees could improve and how questions could be adapted to facilitate this. Interviewees also provided feedback about the interview process from their perspective. Adaptations to the questions were developed, with Interview 2 taking place approximately 6 months later. Results demonstrated that, in Interview 1, employment experts rated autistic interviewees less favourably than nonautistic interviewees. Ratings of both autistic and non-autistic participants’ answers improved in Interview 2, but particularly for autistic interviewees (such that differences between autistic and non-autistic interviewees’ performance reduced in Interview 2). Employers should be aware that adaptations to job interview questions are critical to level the playing field for autistic candidates.
Lay abstract
Despite possessing valuable skills, differences in the way that autistic people understand and respond to others in social situations mean that they are frequently disadvantaged in job interviews. We examined how autistic and non-autistic adults compared on standard (unmodified) job interview questions, and then used these findings to develop and evaluate supportive adaptations to questions. Fifty adults (25 autistic, 25 non-autistic) took part in two mock job interviews. Interview 1 provided a baseline measure of performance when answering typical, unmodified interview questions. Employment experts (unaware of participants’ autism diagnoses) rated all interviewees on their responses to each question and their overall impressions of them and then provided feedback about how interviewees could improve and how questions could be adapted to facilitate this. Interviewees also provided feedback about the interview process, from their perspective. Adaptations to the questions were developed, with Interview 2 taking place approximately 6 months later. Results demonstrated that, in Interview 1, employment experts rated autistic interviewees less favourably than non-autistic interviewees. Ratings of both autistic and non-autistic participants’ answers improved in Interview 2, but particularly for autistic interviewees (such that differences between autistic and non-autistic interviewees’ performance reduced in Interview 2). Employers should be aware that adaptations to job interview questions are critical to level the playing field for autistic candidates.
... Results showed that when participants were in the presence of the confederate watching, they decided to donate money more often than when alone in the room. This has been replicated by Cage and colleagues (Cage, Pellicano, Shah, & Bird, 2013), who also found that participants accepted more donations in the presence of the observer when the observer could later reciprocate. ...
Reputation management theory suggests that our behaviour changes in the presence of others to signal good reputation (audience effect). However, the specific cognitive mechanisms by which being watched triggers these changes are poorly understood. Here we test the hypothesis that these changes happen because the belief in being watched increases self-referential processing. We used a novel deceptive video-conference paradigm, where participants believe a video-clip is (or is not) a live feed of a confederate watching them. Participants completed four tasks measuring self-referential processing, prosocial behaviour and self-awareness under these two belief settings. Although the belief manipulation and self-referential effect task were effective, there were no changes on self-referential processing between the two settings, nor on prosocial behaviour and self-awareness. Based on previous evidence and these findings, we propose that further research on the role of the self, social context and personality traits will help elucidating the mechanisms underlying audience effects.
... Our observations are broadly consistent with research on enhanced attention to detail [3] and time perception [4] in ASC. Equally, our observations follow evidence that social motivation may be atypical in some autistic individuals, for example showing reduced propensity to moderate their electronic behaviour to manage how they are perceived by the experimenter despite being able to do so [5]. Finally, we note that electronic social communication difficulties, particularly from our mentoring of autistic students, appear to arise from difficulties in understanding and appropriately responding to others' mental states, in line with theory of mind-based explanations of ASC [6] or from having their atypical communication style misinterpreted by neurotypical people, in line with the double empathy theory of ASC [7]. ...
... In addition, such significant but modest explanatory power is a reminder that social symptoms in AS are not solely due to mentalizing deficits. For example, they could be driven by some other issues in social cognition, including, but not limited to, social anxiety [46] or the misperception/misunderstanding of social norms [47,48]. Evaluating the relative contribution of these processes to social symptoms is clearly a promising research avenue for the computational psychiatric approach to AS. ...
Autism is still diagnosed on the basis of subjective assessments of elusive notions such as interpersonal contact and social reciprocity. We propose to decompose reciprocal social interactions in their basic computational constituents. Specifically, we test the assumption that autistic individuals disregard information regarding the stakes of social interactions when adapting to others. We compared 24 adult autistic participants to 24 neurotypical (NT) participants engaging in a repeated dyadic competitive game against artificial agents with calibrated reciprocal adaptation capabilities. Critically, participants were framed to believe either that they were competing against somebody else or that they were playing a gambling game. Only the NT participants did alter their adaptation strategy when they held information regarding others' competitive incentives, in which case they outperformed the AS group. Computational analyses of trial-by-trial choice sequences show that the behavioural repertoire of autistic people exhibits subnormal flexibility and mentalizing sophistication, especially when information regarding opponents’ incentives was available. These two computational phenotypes yield 79% diagnosis classification accuracy and explain 62% of the severity of social symptoms in autistic participants. Such computational decomposition of the autistic social phenotype may prove relevant for drawing novel diagnostic boundaries and guiding individualized clinical interventions in autism.
... Izuma et al. (2011) reported that autistic participants (N = 10) were less likely than non-autistic participants (N = 11) to increase their donation to a charity when they were observed by an experimenter, suggesting that autistic participants were less motivated by reputation management. However, E. Cage, Pellicano, Shah, and Bird (2013) were unable to replicate that result when they told autistic (N = 9) and non-autistic (N = 9) participants that the person observing them would reciprocate their donation; neither autistic nor non-autistic participants increased their donation.Using larger samples, E. Cage, Bird, and Pellicano (2016) reported that autistic participants (N = 33) did not differ fromnon-autistic participants (N = 33) in the number of points they were willing to give away in a computer game when they were versus were not observed. ...
We investigated whether autistic people are less prone to self-enhance (i.e., portray themselves in socially desirable ways). Autistic (N = 130) and non-autistic (N = 130) participants first responded to social desirability items using the standard instruction to endorse each item as true or false about themselves. Then, all participants read an explanation of what social desirability items measure before responding again to the social desirability items. Self-enhancement was operationalized as participantsendorsing more social desirability items before learning the explanation than after. All participants endorsed significantly more social desirability items before learning the explanation than after, F/subjects(1,258) = 57.73, p < .001, η2p = .183; F/items(1,34) = 43.04, p < .001, η2p = .559). However, autistic and non-autistic participants did not significantly differ in how many items they endorsed, either before or after reading the explanation, indicating that autistic people are as susceptible to social desirability and self-enhancement as non-autistic people are. Our results challenge the claim that autistic people are immune to reputation management.
... Alors que de nombreuses personnes neurotypiques, de tous genres, gèrent la façon dont les autres les perçoivent en situations sociales (Izuma et al., 2011), la recherche en ce domaine suggère que les individus avec ASC ont une capacité réduite à faire de même (Cage et al., 2013). Cependant, cette dernière s'est centrée en ce domaine sur la manipulation de comportements sociaux courants, plutôt que sur comment lesdits individus peuvent vouloir et être capables d'adapter leurs caractéristiques liées à ladite condition. ...
Camouflaging of autistic characteristics in social situations is hypothesised as a common social coping strategy for adults with an autism spectrum condition (ASC). Camouflaging may impact diagnosis, quality of life, and long-term outcomes, but little is known about it. This qualitative study examined camouflaging experiences in 92 adults with ASC, with questions focusing on the nature, motivations, and consequences of camouflaging. Thematic analysis was used to identify key elements of camouflaging, which informed development of a three-stage model of the camou-flaging process. First, motivations for camouflaging included fitting in and increasing connections with others. Second, camouflaging itself comprised a combination of masking and compensation techniques. Third, short- and long-term consequences of camouflaging included exhaustion, chal-lenging stereotypes, and threats to self-perception.
... Is it any wonder that, after a lifetime of marginalisation for inherently harmless, objectively neutral differences like one's sense of humour, autistics would learn to devalue such differences? Not doing so would fall out of the tendencies of stigmatised group members (Crocker and Major, 1989), so a deficit-oriented researcher might find fault with autistics for supposedly lacking awareness of or concern for reputation, as in Izuma et al.'s (2011) pathologisation of autistics for not giving more to charity in the presence of an observer; see Gross (2011) and Cage et al. (2013) for critique of that donation study. ...
This analysis argues that social deficit theories exacerbate the worst excesses of the medical model, a framework that attributes autism (in this example) as the cause of a person's functional impairment or disability, and empowers professionals and caregivers to treat autistic people's problems. Social deficit theories of autism generally conceptualise a deficit in understanding of others or motivation to relate to others as its primary cause. Harms of the medical model heightened by these theories include dehumanisation that denies basic respect and dignity, pathologisation of neutral and positive differences, reductionism to a social disorder despite complex traits and sensorimotor underpinnings, and essentialism despite autism's fluid boundaries. Proposed solutions include a more holistic and socially embedded classification system that recognises strengths and functional differences, more inclusion of autistic people in research and society, and practical strategies to help autistic and non-autistic people understand one another.
... Reputation management (also known as self-presentation) involves various strategies to both motivate and construct one's public reputation, which may be distinct to one's private self-impression (Leary & Kowalski, 1990). However, research suggests that autistic individuals use reputation management less often, and to a lesser degree than TD individuals (Cage, Pellicano, Shah, & Bird, 2013). In contrast, camouflaging (which involves behavioural management related specifically to autistic traits), is more common in autistic than non-autistic individuals (Hull et al., 2018). ...
This study investigated the association of the five-factor model and trait emotional intelligence (trait EI) with camouflaging behaviours (masking and compensating for autistic characteristics) in a large sample of 278 autistic and 230 typically developing (TD) participants. Participants completed questionnaires assessing autistic traits, big five personality, trait EI, and social camouflaging of autistic traits. Camouflaging was negatively related to extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, while it was positively related to neuroticism. Trait EI was also negatively linked to camouflaging. The differences between autistic and TD participants regarding camouflaging are discussed.
Additionally, associations between the dimensions of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism with autistic traits were found, supporting previous research showing that individuals with higher autistic traits are predisposed to specific personality traits. Trait EI had a negative relationship with autistic traits, suggesting a specific emotional difficulty for individuals with high autistic traits.
... Results showed that when participants were in the presence of the confederate watching, they decided to donate money more often than when alone in the room. This has been replicated by Cage and colleagues (Cage, Pellicano, Shah, & Bird, 2013), who also found that participants accepted more donations in the presence of the observer when the observer could later reciprocate. ...
Reputation management theory suggests that our behaviour changes in the presence of others to signal good reputation (audience effect). However, the specific cognitive mechanisms by which being watched triggers these changes are poorly understood. Here we test the hypothesis that these changes happen because the belief in being watched increases self-referential processing. We used a novel deceptive video-conference paradigm, where participants believe a video-clip is (or is not) a live feed of a confederate watching them. Participants completed four tasks measuring self-referential processing, prosocial behaviour and self-awareness under these two belief settings. Although the belief manipulation and self-referential effect task were effective, there were no changes on self-referential processing between the two settings, nor on prosocial behaviour and self-awareness. Based on previous evidence and these findings, we propose that further research on the role of the self, social context and personality traits will help elucidating the mechanisms underlying audience effects.
... Results showed that when participants were in the presence of the confederate watching, they decided to donate money more often than when alone in the room. This has been replicated by Cage and colleagues (Cage, Pellicano, Shah, & Bird, 2013), who also found that participants accepted more donations in the presence of the observer when the observer could later reciprocate. ...
Reputation management theory suggests that our behaviour changes in the presence of others to signal good reputation (audience effect). However, the specific cognitive mechanisms by which being watched triggers these changes are poorly understood. Here we test the hypothesis that these changes happen because the belief in being watched increases self-referential processing. We used a novel deceptive video-conference paradigm, where participants believe a video-clip is (or is not) a live feed of a confederate watching them. Participants completed four tasks measuring self-referential processing, prosocial behaviour and self-awareness under these two belief settings. Although the belief manipulation and self-referential effect task were effective, there were no changes on self-referential processing between the two settings, nor on prosocial behaviour and self-awareness. Based on previous evidence and these findings, we propose that further research on the role of the self, social context and personality traits will help elucidating the mechanisms underlying audience effects.
... Izuma et al. (2011) reported that autistic participants (N = 10) were less likely than non-autistic participants (N = 11) to increase their donation to a charity when they were observed by an experimenter, suggesting that autistic participants were less motivated by reputation management. However, E. Cage, Pellicano, Shah, and Bird (2013) were unable to replicate that result when they told autistic (N = 9) and non-autistic (N = 9) participants that the person observing them would reciprocate their donation; neither autistic nor non-autistic participants increased their donation.Using larger samples, E. Cage, Bird, and Pellicano (2016) reported that autistic participants (N = 33) did not differ fromnon-autistic participants (N = 33) in the number of points they were willing to give away in a computer game when they were versus were not observed. ...
We investigated whether autistic people are less prone to self-enhance (i.e., portray themselves in socially desirable ways). Autistic ( N = 130) and non-autistic ( N = 130) participants first responded to social desirability items using the standard instruction to endorse each item as true or false about themselves. Then, all participants read an explanation of what social desirability items measure before responding again to the social desirability items. Self-enhancement was operationalized as participants endorsing more social desirability items before learning the explanation than after. All participants endorsed significantly more social desirability items before learning the explanation than after, F subjects (1, 258) = 57.73, p < .001, [Formula: see text] = .183; F items (1, 34) = 43.04, p < .001, [Formula: see text] = .559). However, autistic and non-autistic participants did not significantly differ in how many items they endorsed, either before or after reading the explanation, indicating that autistic people are as susceptible to social desirability and self-enhancement as non-autistic people are. Our results challenge the claim that autistic people are immune to reputation management.
... But if we only did things that other humans required of us, what kind of society would we be living in? There is evidence that autistic people may be less susceptible to social pressure, and therefore able to make more stable moral and perceptual judgments, (Cage et al., 2013;Izuma et al., 2011). Others (for example Wendy Lawson (Lawson, 2010(Lawson, , 2008) cite the creative potential that comes with independent perception. ...
Diagnostic assessment tools are widely used instruments in research and clinical practice to assess and evaluate autism symptoms for both children and adults. These tools typically involve observing the child or adult under assessment, and rating their behaviour for signs or so-called symptoms of autism. In order to examine how autism diagnosis is constructed, how diagnostic tools are positioned, and how their trainings are delivered, we paid for four places on a training course for a diagnostic tool. We asked the attendees (the first four authors) to each produce a critical commentary about their impressions of the training and the diagnostic tool itself. Their commentaries are published here in full. They have various disciplinary backgrounds: one is a social scientist, one an ethicist, one a psychiatrist, and one a developmental psychologist.
The commentaries are followed by a concluding section that summarises the themes, commonalities, and differences between their accounts of the training course. Authors differed as to whether the diagnostic tool is a useful and necessary endeavour. Nevertheless, all critiqued of the tool’s lack of transparency, recognizing context, emotion, and differences in interpretation and power imbalances as playing an unidentified role in the assessment process. Based on this project, we recommend that training for raters for such tools should be accessible to a wider group of people, and incorporate more explicit recognition of its own limitations and commercialisation.
In October 2019, two months after my 40th birthday, I received a formal diagnosis that I was autistic. I joined all those other thousands of late-diagnosed women in the UK, previously undiagnosed and overlooked. I had spent my years being mislabelled, misunderstood, or misinterpreted. I dealt with feelings I did not understand and sensory experiences I could not bear to process. I felt a need to cope with the ‘normal’ aspects of everyday life. I never knew why I experienced these troubles and troubling feelings for all those years. The discourse surrounding autism is referred to as the cost of camouflaging. In this article, I critically discuss predominant discourses on autism and gender as I reflect on my auto/biographical troubles from my newly confirmed, acquired identity and perspective as an autistic, now 40-something-year-old woman.
Theory of mind (ToM), the ability to represent the mental states of oneself and others, is argued to be central to human social experience, and impairments in this ability are thought to underlie several psychiatric and developmental conditions. To examine the accuracy of mental state inferences, a novel ToM task was developed, requiring inferences to be made about the mental states of 'Targets', prior participants who took part in a videoed mock interview. Participants also made estimates of the Targets' personality traits. These inferences were compared to ground-truth data, provided by the Targets, of their true traits and mental states. Results from 55 adult participants demonstrated that trait inferences were used to derive mental state inferences, and that the accuracy of trait estimates predicted the accuracy of mental state inferences. Moreover, the size and direction of the association between trait accuracy and mental state accuracy varied according to the trait-mental state combination. The accuracy of trait inferences was predicted by the accuracy of participants' understanding of trait covariation at the population level. Findings are in accordance with the Mind-space theory, that representation of the Target mind is used in the inference of their mental states.
Social motivation accounts of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) posit that individuals with ASD find social stimuli less rewarding than neurotypical (NT) individuals. Behaviorally, this is proposed to manifest in reduced social orienting (individuals with ASD direct less attention towards social stimuli) and reduced social seeking (individuals with ASD invest less effort to receive social stimuli). In two meta-analyses, involving data from over 6000 participants, we review the available behavioral studies that assess social orienting and social seeking behaviors in ASD. We found robust evidence for reduced social orienting in ASD, across a range of paradigms, demographic variables and stimulus contexts. The most robust predictor of this effect was interactive content - effects were larger when the stimulus involved an interaction between people. By contrast, the evidence for reduced social seeking indicated weaker evidence for group differences, observed only under specific experimental conditions. The insights gained from this meta-analysis can inform design of relevant task measures for social reward responsivity and promote directions for further study on the ASD phenotype.
Background
The potential role of autism as a moderator of conformity has recently been investigated by a small number of studies. However, as yet, no consensus has emerged as to whether autism or autistic traits can moderate the degree to which people attend to and are influenced by social pressure, nor whether there are specific circum-stances under which this might occur. The current study adds to this ambiguous literature by looking at whether autism and autistic traits are associated with conformity in the context of adolescent peer pressure.
Participants and procedure
A sample of 12-16 year old students completed questionnaire measures of peer conformity (e.g., in relation to smoking, skipping school, etc.), resistance to peer influence, and autistic traits. Approximately half had an au-tism-related diagnosis, and none had an intellectual impairment.
Results
Controlling for age, gender, and academic ability, we found that degree of autistic traits was associated with reduced peer conformity, while a diagnosis of autism was not. In contrast, neither autism nor autistic traits were related to resistance to peer influence.
Conclusions
These results are contextualised in terms of past research and positioned within a broader model of individual differences and conformity in which autistic traits moderate the degree to which a person perceives peer influ-ence, while resistance to peer influence moderates the degree to which one conforms to peer influence. Possi-ble future avenues of inquiry are suggested.
Knowledge and recognition of the significance and strength of various cognitive-behavioural phenotypes, including phenotypes associated with mental and developmental disorders, are increasing but remain limited. With a focus on biological, psychological, and economic concepts such as biodiversity, neurodiversity, and comparative advantage, this paper argues that individuals and society benefit when individuals with different cognitive-behavioural profiles coexist within a society. This paper also discusses the strength of various cognitive-behavioural phenotypes, focusing especially on the autism spectrum. The advantages and strength of diverse cognitive-behavioural phenotypes are emphasised; however, highlighting these positive aspects does not mean neglecting individuals’ need for support: humans are multifaceted and individuals who share a diagnosis are varied as well. Future research must increasingly focus on how we all can take advantage of our strengths through sharing perspectives, including the perspectives of individuals facing disabilities.
We agree that autistics’ unusual overt behaviors don't necessarily mean reduced social motivation. But Jaswal & Akhtar maintain that, while autistics may appear socially uninterested, their social interest is in fact typical and indeed must be to avoid multiple poor outcomes. This problematic idealization of social typicality deflects attention from important differences in autistic cognition and interests, which should be valued.
Economic games in field settings have been subject to criticism concerning their ecological validity. We use social identity theory and the intergroup contact hypothesis as a framework to illustrate how economic games can be applied to field settings with higher ecological validity. A quasi-experiment in two rural Cameroonian villages studied participants’ allocation of rice to co-inhabitants of their village. The villages are characterized by different degrees of contact between the ethnic groups and the sexes. Our results indicate that women who are segregated from each other disadvantage other women more than men or women who experience higher amounts of contact. These findings are interesting from a theoretical and methodological perspective since we utilized a nonmonetary stake in naturalistic intergroup settings.
Models indicate that opportunities for reputation formation can play an important role in sustaining cooperation and prosocial behavior. Results from experimental economic games support this conclusion, as manipulating reputational opportunities affects prosocial behavior. Noting that some prosocial behavior remains even in anonymous noniterated games, some investigators argue that humans possess a propensity for prosociality independent of reputation management. However, decision-making processes often employ both explicit propositional knowledge and intuitive or affective judgments elicited by tacit cues. Manipulating game parameters alters explicit information employed in overt strategizing but leaves intact cues that may affect intuitive judgments relevant to reputation formation. To explore how subtle cues of observability impact prosocial behavior, we conducted five dictator games, manipulating both auditory cues of the presence of others (via the use of sound-deadening earmuffs) and visual cues (via the presentation of stylized eyespots). Although earmuffs appeared to reduce generosity, this effect was not significant. However, as predicted, eyespots substantially increased generosity, despite no differences in actual anonymity; when using a computer displaying eyespots, almost twice as many participants gave money to their partners compared with the controls. Investigations of prosocial behavior must consider both overt information about game parameters and subtle cues influencing intuitive judgments.
Social facilitation, the theory, originated out of the field of experimental social psychology as a means of explaining individual's behavior in social situations. Social facilitation is described as enhancing one's dominant response simply by being in the presence of others. Social facilitation, while not widely applied to consumer behavior, holds hope of becoming an interesting and useful tool in attempting to predict consumer behavior, specifically, behavior in particular buying situations. This paper examines social facilitation theory, where the presence of others is central, as a good predictor of consumer behavior in shopping situations, like: store crowding and waiting in line. Thus, the following critical areas of social facilitation are explored: mere presence of others, distraction-conflict, evaluation apprehension, and crowding. Before these areas can be applied, it is necessary to investigate the origin of social facilitation, the theory.
Deficits in social cognition are an evident clinical feature of the Asperger syndrome (AS). Although many daily life problems of adults with AS are related to social cognition impairments, few studies have conducted comprehensive research in this area. The current study examined multiple domains of social cognition in adults with AS assessing the executive functions (EF) and exploring the intra and inter-individual variability. Fifteen adult's diagnosed with AS and 15 matched healthy controls completed a battery of social cognition tasks. This battery included measures of emotion recognition, theory of mind (ToM), empathy, moral judgment, social norms knowledge, and self-monitoring behavior in social settings. We controlled for the effect of EF and explored the individual variability. The results indicated that adults with AS had a fundamental deficit in several domains of social cognition. We also found high variability in the social cognition tasks. In these tasks, AS participants obtained mostly subnormal performance. EF did not seem to play a major role in the social cognition impairments. Our results suggest that adults with AS present a pattern of social cognition deficits characterized by the decreased ability to implicitly encode and integrate contextual information in order to access to the social meaning. Nevertheless, when social information is explicitly presented or the situation can be navigated with abstract rules, performance is improved. Our findings have implications for the diagnosis and treatment of individuals with AS as well as for the neurocognitive models of this syndrome.
A leading hypothesis to explain the social dysfunction in people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is that they exhibit a deficit in reward processing and motivation specific to social stimuli. However, there have been few direct tests of this hypothesis to date. Here we used an instrumental reward learning task that contrasted learning with social rewards (pictures of positive and negative faces) against learning with monetary reward (winning and losing money). The two tasks were structurally identical except for the type of reward, permitting direct comparisons. We tested 10 high-functioning people with ASD (7M, 3F) and 10 healthy controls who were matched on gender, age, and education. We found no significant differences between the two groups in terms of overall ability behaviorally to discriminate positive from negative slot machines, reaction-times, and valence ratings, However, there was a specific impairment in the ASD group in learning to choose social rewards, compared to monetary rewards: they had a significantly lower cumulative number of choices of the most rewarding social slot machine, and had a significantly slower initial learning rate for the socially rewarding slot machine, compared to the controls. The findings show a deficit in reward learning in ASD that is greater for social rewards than for monetary rewards, and support the hypothesis of a disproportionate impairment in social reward processing in ASD.
Efficient effort expenditure to obtain rewards is critical for optimal goal-directed behavior and learning. Clinical observation suggests that individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) may show dysregulated reward-based effort expenditure, but no behavioral study to date has assessed effort-based decision-making in ASD.
The current study compared a group of adults with ASD to a group of typically developing adults on the Effort Expenditure for Rewards Task (EEfRT), a behavioral measure of effort-based decision-making. In this task, participants were provided with the probability of receiving a monetary reward on a particular trial and asked to choose between either an "easy task" (less motoric effort) for a small, stable reward or a "hard task" (greater motoric effort) for a variable but consistently larger reward.
Participants with ASD chose the hard task more frequently than did the control group, yet were less influenced by differences in reward value and probability than the control group. Additionally, effort-based decision-making was related to repetitive behavior symptoms across both groups.
These results suggest that individuals with ASD may be more willing to expend effort to obtain a monetary reward regardless of the reward contingencies. More broadly, results suggest that behavioral choices may be less influenced by information about reward contingencies in individuals with ASD. This atypical pattern of effort-based decision-making may be relevant for understanding the heightened reward motivation for circumscribed interests in ASD.
One hypothesis for the social deficits that characterize autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is diminished neural reward response to social interaction and attachment. Prior research using established monetary reward paradigms as a test of non-social reward to compare with social reward may involve confounds in the ability of individuals with ASD to utilize symbolic representation of money and the abstraction required to interpret monetary gains. Thus, a useful addition to our understanding of neural reward circuitry in ASD includes a characterization of the neural response to primary rewards.
We asked 17 children with ASD and 18 children without ASD to abstain from eating for at least four hours before an MRI scan in which they viewed images of high-calorie foods. We assessed the neural reward network for increases in the blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) signal in response to the food images
We found very similar patterns of increased BOLD signal to these images in the two groups; both groups showed increased BOLD signal in the bilateral amygdala, as well as in the nucleus accumbens, orbitofrontal cortex, and insula. Direct group comparisons revealed that the ASD group showed a stronger response to food cues in bilateral insula along the anterior-posterior gradient and in the anterior cingulate cortex than the control group, whereas there were no neural reward regions that showed higher activation for controls than for ASD.
These results suggest that neural response to primary rewards is not diminished but in fact shows an aberrant enhancement in children with ASD.
With the publication of the first articles of this 2012 volume, the Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders enters the exciting world of open access publishing. The Journal will now be published by BioMed Central, (part of Springer Science+Business Media) as a fully open access journal. This change will mean that all articles will be made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication, will be available to readers throughout the world without subscription charges or registration barriers, and be indexed in both PubMed and PubMed Central.
The Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule—Generic (ADOS-G) is a semistructured, standardized assessment of social interaction, communication, play, and imaginative use of materials for individuals suspected of having autism spectrum disorders. The observational schedule consists of four 30-minute modules, each designed to be administered to different individuals according to their level of expressive language. Psychometric data are presented for 223 children and adults with Autistic Disorder (autism), Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (PDDNOS) or nonspectrum diagnoses. Within each module, diagnostic groups were equivalent on expressive language level. Results indicate substantial interrater and test—retest reliability for individual items, excellent interrater reliability within domains and excellent internal consistency. Comparisons of means indicated consistent differentiation of autism and PDDNOS from nonspectrum individuals, with some, but less consistent, differentiation of autism from PDDNOS. A priori operationalization of DSM-IV/ICD-10 criteria, factor analyses, and ROC curves were used to generate diagnostic algorithms with thresholds set for autism and broader autism spectrum/PDD. Algorithm sensitivities and specificities for autism and PDDNOS relative to nonspectrum disorders were excellent, with moderate differentiation of autism from PDDNOS.
Although it has been suggested that social deficits of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are related to reward circuitry dysfunction, very little is known about the neural reward mechanisms in ASD. In the current functional magnetic resonance imaging study, we investigated brain activations in response to both social and monetary reward in a group of children with ASD, relative to matched controls. Participants with ASD showed the expected hypoactivation in the mesocorticolimbic circuitry in response to both reward types. In particular, diminished activation in the nucleus accumbens was observed when money, but not when social reward, was at stake, whereas the amygdala and anterior cingulate cortex were hypoactivated within the ASD group in response to both rewards. These data indicate that the reward circuitry is compromised in ASD in social as well as in non-social, i.e. monetary conditions, which likely contributes to atypical motivated behaviour. Taken together, with incentives used in this study sample, there is evidence for a general reward dysfunction in ASD. However, more ecologically valid social reward paradigms are needed to fully understand, whether there is any domain specificity to the reward deficit that appears evident in ASD, which would be most consistent with the ASD social phenotype.
In decision from experience, the source of probability information affects how probability is distorted in the decision task. Understanding how and why probability is distorted is a key issue in understanding the peculiar character of experience-based decision. We consider how probability information is used not just in decision-making but also in a wide variety of cognitive, perceptual, and motor tasks. Very similar patterns of distortion of probability/frequency information have been found in visual frequency estimation, frequency estimation based on memory, signal detection theory, and in the use of probability information in decision-making under risk and uncertainty. We show that distortion of probability in all cases is well captured as linear transformations of the log odds of frequency and/or probability, a model with a slope parameter, and an intercept parameter. We then consider how task and experience influence these two parameters and the resulting distortion of probability. We review how the probability distortions change in systematic ways with task and report three experiments on frequency distortion where the distortions change systematically in the same task. We found that the slope of frequency distortions decreases with the sample size, which is echoed by findings in decision from experience. We review previous models of the representation of uncertainty and find that none can account for the empirical findings.
The aim of this study was to investigate reward circuitry responses in autism during reward anticipation and outcomes for monetary and social rewards. During monetary anticipation, participants with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) showed hypoactivation in right nucleus accumbens and hyperactivation in right hippocampus, whereas during monetary outcomes, participants with ASDs showed hyperactivation in left midfrontal and anterior cingulate gyrus. Groups did not differ in nucleus accumbens responses to faces. The ASD group demonstrated hyperactivation in bilateral amygdala during face anticipation that predicted social symptom severity and in bilateral insular cortex during face outcomes. These results add to the growing body of evidence that autism is characterized by altered functioning of reward circuitry. Additionally, atypical amygdala activation during the processing of social rewards may contribute to the development or expression of autistic features.
People act more prosocially when they know they are watched by others, an everyday observation borne out by studies from behavioral economics, social psychology, and cognitive neuroscience. This effect is thought to be mediated by the incentive to improve one's social reputation, a specific and possibly uniquely human motivation that depends on our ability to represent what other people think of us. Here we tested the hypothesis that social reputation effects are selectively impaired in autism, a developmental disorder characterized in part by impairments in reciprocal social interactions but whose underlying cognitive causes remain elusive. When asked to make real charitable donations in the presence or absence of an observer, matched healthy controls donated significantly more in the observer's presence than absence, replicating prior work. By contrast, people with high-functioning autism were not influenced by the presence of an observer at all in this task. However, both groups performed significantly better on a continuous performance task in the presence of an observer, suggesting intact general social facilitation in autism. The results argue that people with autism lack the ability to take into consideration what others think of them and provide further support for specialized neural systems mediating the effects of social reputation.
The self-presentation skills of children and adolescents with high-functioning autistic spectrum disorder (HFASD) and typically developing (TD) controls were compared, in response to both hypothetical and real life situations. In both situations, 26 HFASD and 26 TD participants were prompted to describe themselves twice, first in a baseline condition, and later in a goal-directed condition where specific information was given about the preferences and demands of the audience. Confirming and extending previous research, both TD and HFASD participants exhibited a tendency to be more positive when describing themselves in a goal-directed condition. However, HFASD participants were less strategic than TD participants in responding to the information they were given about the audience preferences and demands. Possible explanations and implications of the results are discussed.
Brain reward circuitry, including ventral striatum and orbitofrontal cortex, has been independently implicated in preferences for fair and cooperative outcomes as well as learning of reputations. Using functional MRI (fMRI) and a "trust game" task involving iterative exchanges with fictive partners who acquire different reputations for reciprocity, we measured brain responses in 36 healthy adults when positive actions (entrust investment to partners) yield positive returns (reciprocity) and how these brain responses are modulated by partner reputation for repayment. Here we show that positive reciprocity robustly engages the ventral striatum and orbitofrontal cortex. Moreover, this signal of reciprocity in the ventral striatum appears selectively in response to partners who have consistently returned the investment (e.g., a reputation for reciprocity) and is absent for partners who lack a reputation for reciprocity. These findings elucidate a fundamental brain mechanism, via reward-related neural substrates, by which human cooperative relationships are initiated and sustained.
Individuals with autism spectrum conditions (ASCs) have a core difficulty in recursively inferring the intentions of others. The precise cognitive dysfunctions that determine the heterogeneity at the heart of this spectrum, however, remains unclear. Furthermore, it remains possible that impairment in social interaction is not a fundamental deficit but a reflection of deficits in distinct cognitive processes. To better understand heterogeneity within ASCs, we employed a game-theoretic approach to characterize unobservable computational processes implicit in social interactions. Using a social hunting game with autistic adults, we found that a selective difficulty representing the level of strategic sophistication of others, namely inferring others' mindreading strategy, specifically predicts symptom severity. In contrast, a reduced ability in iterative planning was predicted by overall intellectual level. Our findings provide the first quantitative approach that can reveal the underlying computational dysfunctions that generate the autistic "spectrum."
This study examined: (a) the prevalence of bullying and victimization among adolescents with ASD, (b) whether they correctly perceived bullying and victimization, and (c) whether Theory of Mind (ToM) and bullying involvement were related to this perception. Data were collected among 230 adolescents with ASD attending special education schools. We found prevalence rates of bullying and victimization between 6 and 46%, with teachers reporting significantly higher rates than peers. Furthermore, adolescents who scored high on teacher- and self-reported victimization were more likely to misinterpret non-bullying situations as bullying. The more often adolescents bullied, according to teachers and peers, and the less developed their ToM, the more they misinterpreted bullying situations as non-bullying. Implications for clinical practice are discussed.
Adults with Asperger syndrome can understand mental states such as desires and beliefs (mentalizing) when explicitly prompted
to do so, despite having impairments in social communication. We directly tested the hypothesis that such individuals nevertheless
fail to mentalize spontaneously. To this end, we used an eye-tracking task that has revealed the spontaneous ability to mentalize
in typically developing infants. We showed that, like infants, neurotypical adults’ (n = 17 participants) eye movements anticipated an actor’s behavior on the basis of her false belief. This was not the case
for individuals with Asperger syndrome (n = 19). Thus, these individuals do not attribute mental states spontaneously, but they may be able to do so in explicit tasks
through compensatory learning.
In this review we consider research on social cognition in which implicit processes can be compared and contrasted with explicit, conscious processes. In each case, their function is distinct, sometimes complementary and sometimes oppositional. We argue that implicit processes in social interaction are automatic and are often opposed to conscious strategies. While we are aware of explicit processes in social interaction, we cannot always use them to override implicit processes. Many studies show that implicit processes facilitate the sharing of knowledge, feelings, and actions, and hence, perhaps surprisingly, serve altruism rather than selfishness. On the other hand, higher-level conscious processes are as likely to be selfish as prosocial.
We use a new model of metarepresentational development to predict a cognitive deficit which could explain a crucial component of the social impairment in childhood autism. One of the manifestations of a basic metarepresentational capacity is a ‘theory of mind’. We have reason to believe that autistic children lack such a ‘theory’. If this were so, then they would be unable to impute beliefs to others and to predict their behaviour. This hypothesis was tested using Wimmer and Perner's puppet play paradigm. Normal children and those with Down's syndrome were used as controls for a group of autistic children. Even though the mental age of the autistic children was higher than that of the controls, they alone failed to impute beliefs to others. Thus the dysfunction we have postulated and demonstrated is independent of mental retardation and specific to autism.RésuméLes auteurs présentent un nouveau mod`éle de développement méta-cognitif pour prédire le déficit cognitif qui rendrait compte d'un composant essentiel du handicap social de l'enfant autiste. Une des manifestations d'une capacité de base méta-cognitive est une ‘theorie de l'esprit'. Nous avons des raisons de croire que cette théorie fait defaut chez l'enfant autiste. Celui-ci serait done incapable d'attribuer des croyances aux autres ou de prédire leur comportement. Cette hypothèse a été testée avec le paradigme de jeu des marionettes utilisé par Wimmer et Perner. Des enfants normaux et des enfants avec trisomie 21 ont servi de groupe contrôle. Bien que Page mental des enfants autistes ait été plus élevé que deux du groupe contrôle, seuls les enfants autistes Wont pu attribuer aux autres des croyances. Ainsi le dysfonctionnement prévu a pu être démontre, il s'avère indépendant du retard mental et spécifique a l'autiste.
This review covers recent developments in the social influence literature, focusing primarily on compliance and conformity research published between 1997 and 2002. The principles and processes underlying a target's susceptibility to outside influences are considered in light of three goals fundamental to rewarding human functioning. Specifically, targets are motivated to form accurate perceptions of reality and react accordingly, to develop and preserve meaningful social relationships, and to maintain a favorable self-concept. Consistent with the current movement in compliance and conformity research, this review emphasizes the ways in which these goals interact with external forces to engender social influence processes that are subtle, indirect, and outside of awareness.
We present a framework for discussing two major aspects of social cognition: the ability to predict what another person is like and what another person is likely to do next. In the first part of this review, we discuss studies that concern knowledge of others as members of a group and as individuals with habitual dispositions. These include studies of group stereotypes and of individual reputation, derived either from experience in reciprocal social interactions such as economic games or from indirect observation and cultural information. In the second part of the review, we focus on processes that underlie our knowledge about actions, intentions, feelings and beliefs. We discuss studies on the ability to predict the course of motor actions and of the intentions behind actions. We also consider studies of contagion and sharing of feelings. Lastly, we discuss studies of spatial and mental perspective taking and the importance of the perception of communicative intent. In the final section of this review, we suggest that the distinction between top-down and bottom-up processes, originally applied to non-social cognitive functions, is highly relevant to social processes. While social stimuli automatically elicit responses via bottom-up processes, responses to the same stimuli can be modulated by explicit instructions via top-down processes. In this way, they provide an escape from the tyranny of strong emotions that are readily aroused in social interactions.
Social interaction is a cornerstone of human life, yet the neural mechanisms underlying social cognition are poorly understood. Recently, research that integrates approaches from neuroscience and social psychology has begun to shed light on these processes, and converging evidence from neuroimaging studies suggests a unique role for the medial frontal cortex. We review the emerging literature that relates social cognition to the medial frontal cortex and, on the basis of anatomical and functional characteristics of this brain region, propose a theoretical model of medial frontal cortical function relevant to different aspects of social cognitive processing.
We examined the effect of an image of a pair of eyes on contributions to an honesty box used to collect money for drinks in a university coffee room. People paid nearly three times as much for their drinks when eyes were displayed rather than a control image. This finding provides the first evidence from a naturalistic setting of the importance of cues of being watched, and hence reputational concerns, on human cooperative behaviour.
The self-presentational behaviour of 43 6- to 12-year-old children with high functioning autism spectrum disorders (HFASD) and normal intelligence and 43 matched comparisons was investigated. Children were prompted to describe themselves twice, first in a baseline condition and then in a condition where they were asked to convince others to select them for a desirable activity (self-promotion). Even after controlling for theory of mind skills, children with HFASD used fewer positive self-statements at baseline, and were less goal-directed during self-promotion than comparison children. Children with HFASD alter their self-presentation when seeking personal gain, but do this less strategically and convincingly than typically-developing children.
We develop a theory of prosocial behavior that combines heterogeneity in individual altruism and greed with concerns for social reputation or self-respect. Rewards or punishments (whether material or image-related) create doubt about the true motive for which good deeds are performed, and this ?overjustification effect? can induce a partial or even net crowding out of prosocial behavior by extrinsic incentives. We also identify the settings that are conducive to multiple social norms and, more generally, those that make individual actions complements or substitutes, which we show depends on whether stigma or honor is (endogenously) the dominant reputational concern. Finally, we analyze the socially optimal level of incentives and how monopolistic or competitive sponsors depart from it. Sponsor competition is shown to potentially reduce social welfare. (JEL D11, D64, D82, Z13)
A solution is suggested for an old unresolved social psychological problem.
The arrival of a book for review usually gives rise to pleasant anticipation, and whatever criticisms have to be made, it is that almost always possible to find some pleasant things to say. But finding praise for this tome is a problem — it is a volume too far. It is to be hoped that the authors
Reciprocity is in this contribution compared with cooperation, hostility, and prosociality, in order to distinguish its peculiar theoretical and empirical characteristics. Two studies are presented. Study 1 (n = 166) is based on the distinction between the mechanism of reciprocity and the consequent behaviour that this mechanism produces. It is shown that participants have a clear implicit theory of the personality traits underlying reciprocal behaviour, and these traits are well differentiated with respect to traits underlying cooperation and hostility. Study 2 (n = 134) is based on the distinction between reciprocity as a goal and reciprocity as a strategy to achieve equality. Results show that individuals with high internalization of the norm of reciprocity allocate payoffs as a function of the valence of other's past behaviour, whereas this feature is irrelevant for individuals with high prosocial orientation. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Communication researchers, along with social scientists from a variety of disciplines, are increasingly recognizing the importance of reporting effect sizes to augment significance tests. Serious errors in the reporting of effect sizes, however, have appeared in recently published articles. This article calls for accurate reporting of estimates of effect size. Eta squared (η2) is the most commonly reported estimate of effect sized for the ANOVA. The classical formulation of eta squared (Pearson, 1911; Fisher, 1928) is distinguished from the lesser known partial eta squared (Cohen, 1973), and a mislabeling problem in the statistical software SPSS (1998) is identified. What SPSS reports as eta squared is really partial eta squared. Hence, researchers obtaining estimates of eta squared from SPSS are at risk of reporting incorrect values. Several simulations are reported to demonstrate critical issues. The strengths and limitations of several estimates of effect size used in ANOVA are discussed, as are the implications of the reporting errors. A list of suggestions for researchers is then offered.
Reciprocity is here considered as an internalized social norm, and a questionnaire to measure individual differences in the internalized norm of reciprocity is presented. The questionnaire, Personal Norm of Reciprocity (PNR), measures three aspects of reciprocity: positive reciprocity, negative reciprocity, and beliefs in reciprocity. The PNR has been developed and tested in two cultures, British and Italian, for a total of 951 participants. A cross-cultural study provides evidence of good psychometric properties and generalizability of the PNR. Data provide evidence for criterion validity and show that positive and negative reciprocators behave in different ways as a function of the valence (positive or negative) of the other's past behaviour, the type of feasible reaction (reward versus punishment), and the fairness of their reaction. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Implicit understanding of false belief was investigated by monitoring where children look in anticipation of a protagonist reappearing, when the protagonist mistakenly thinks that his desired object is in a different place from the place where it really is. This implicit measure of understanding was contrasted with children's explicit answers to the experimenter's question about where the protagonist would look for the object. Children from 2 years 5 months to 2 years 10 months erroneously looked at the object's real location, which they gave for their answer. From 2 years 11 months to 4 years 5 months, about 90% of the children looked at the empty location where the protagonist thought the object was.In sharp contrast, only about 45% of the children in this age span gave that location as their explicit answer to the experimenter's question. These results are explained in terms of a distinction between representing a fact and making a judgment about that fact.
Understanding of second-order belief structures by 5- and 10-year-old children was assessed in acted stories in which two characters (John and Mary) were independently informed about an object's (ice-cream van's) unexpected transfer to a new location. Hence both John and Mary knew where the van was but there was a mistake in John's second-order belief about Mary's belief: “John thinks Mary thinks the van is still at the old place”. Children's understanding of this second-order belief was tested by asking “Where does John think Mary will go for ice cream?” Correct answers could only be given if John's second-order belief was represented, since all shortcut reasoning based on first-order beliefs would have led to the wrong answer. Results suggested unexpected early competence around the age of 6 and 7 years, shown under optimal conditions when inference of second-order beliefs was prompted.
Human behavior is strongly influenced by the presence of others. Obtaining a good reputation or avoiding a bad one is a powerful incentive for a plethora of human actions. Theoretical considerations suggest that reputation may be a key mediator of aspects of altruistic behavior that are uniquely human. Despite its considerable influence on human social behavior and the growing interest in social neuroscience, investigations of the neural basis of reputation-based decision-making are still in their infancy. Here, I argue that reputation is an important aspect of human social cognition and present some of the candidate neural mechanisms.
The idea that social motivation deficits play a central role in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) has recently gained increased interest. This constitutes a shift in autism research, which has traditionally focused more intensely on cognitive impairments, such as theory-of-mind deficits or executive dysfunction, and has granted comparatively less attention to motivational factors. This review delineates the concept of social motivation and capitalizes on recent findings in several research areas to provide an integrated account of social motivation at the behavioral, biological and evolutionary levels. We conclude that ASD can be construed as an extreme case of diminished social motivation and, as such, provides a powerful model to understand humans' intrinsic drive to seek acceptance and avoid rejection.
A recent study has found that autistic people donate the same to charity regardless of whether they are observed. This is not because they are oblivious to others, but because they are free of hypocrisy.
The social motivation hypothesis of autism posits that infants with autism do not experience social stimuli as rewarding, thereby leading to a cascade of potentially negative consequences for later development. While possible downstream effects of this hypothesis such as altered face and voice processing have been examined, there has not been a direct investigation of social reward processing in autism. Here we use functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine social and monetary rewarded implicit learning in children with and without autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Sixteen males with ASD and sixteen age- and IQ-matched typically developing (TD) males were scanned while performing two versions of a rewarded implicit learning task. In addition to examining responses to reward, we investigated the neural circuitry supporting rewarded learning and the relationship between these factors and social development. We found diminished neural responses to both social and monetary rewards in ASD, with a pronounced reduction in response to social rewards (SR). Children with ASD also demonstrated a further deficit in frontostriatal response during social, but not monetary, rewarded learning. Moreover, we show a relationship between ventral striatum activity and social reciprocity in TD children. Together, these data support the hypothesis that children with ASD have diminished neural responses to SR, and that this deficit relates to social learning impairments.
Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Sussex, 1995.
The penny‐hiding game is a deception game that occurs naturally in parent‐child and child‐child interaction. It involves minimal linguistic demands, and is lots of fun. Oswald and Ollendick (1989) employed it with subjects with autism and reported an impaired capacity for deception. They also found that this correlated with performance on both a false belief (“theory of mind”) test as well as various measures of social behaviour. The experiment reported here set out to replicate Oswald and Ollendick's important results, and then extend them by using a new technique for error analysis.
We succeeded in replicating the autism‐specific deception impairment as well as the finding that deception capacity correlates highly with performance on a false belief test. In addition, the new analytic technique discriminated the group with autism from controls more clearly than the traditional index of deception. Specifically, subjects with autism, whilst fully capable of enjoying the game as a game of object occlusion (keeping things out of sight), failed to perceive the game as a game of information occlusion (keeping things out of mind), unlike normal children or subjects with a mental handicap of an equivalent or lower mental age. The dissociation in autism between occluding objects vs occluding information is discussed in relation to other research showing that subjects with autism are impaired in understanding the principle that “seeing leads to knowing”.
Research has suggested that the core handicaps of autism result from a specific impairment in theory of mind (ToM). However, this account has been challenged by the finding that a minority of autistic subjects pass 1st- and even 2nd-order ToM tests while remaining socially handicapped. In the present study, able autistic subjects who failed ToM tasks, those who passed 1st-order, and those who passed 2nd-order tasks were tested with a battery of more naturalistic and complex stories. Autistic subjects were impaired at providing context-appropriate mental state explanations for the story characters' nonliteral utterances, compared to normal and mentally handicapped controls. Performance on the stories was closely related to performance on standard ToM tasks, but even those autistic subjects who passed all ToM tests showed impairments on the more naturalistic story materials relative to normal adult controls.
Hans Asperger drew attention to individuals who show the core symptoms of autism in the presence of high verbal intelligence.
A review of the literature explores current issues concerning the diagnosis and nature of Asperger syndrome.
The behavioural and neurophysiological evidence to date suggests that Asperger syndrome is a variant of autism typically occurring in high-functioning individuals, and not a separate disorder. One of the problems of diagnosis is that the typical impairment of social communication may be difficult to identify in early childhood, and can be camouflaged in adulthood by compensatory learning. The range and nature of the social impairments in Asperger syndrome are still in need of investigation, but appear to be less severe than in autism. Experimental evidence suggests that individuals with Asperger syndrome may lack an intuitive theory of mind (mentalising), but may be able to acquire an explicit theory of mind. Brain imaging studies pinpoint a network that links medial prefrontal and temporal cortex as the neural substrate of intuitive mentalising. This network shows reduced activation and poor connectivity in Asperger syndrome. While some individuals with Asperger syndrome have written eloquently about their lives, their ability to talk about their own emotions appears to be impaired (alexithymia). This impairment may be linked to depression and anxiety, which is common in adulthood. Little is as yet known about the often considerable cognitive strengths in Asperger syndrome, or about the difficulties observed in higher-level executive skills.
Studies are needed that define the developmental course of the disorder and the nature of the strengths and weaknesses in both social and non-social domains. This requires more sensitive assessment instruments than are currently available. Questions about the prevalence of Asperger syndrome, about associated and secondary features, and about optimal education and management, urgently call for such studies.
On the basis of the clinical and theoretical literature, 62 items in the domains of security, retention, and power-prestige were generated. Factor analysis yielded five factors: power-prestige, retention-time, distrust, quality, and anxiety. A 29-item Money Attitude Scale (MAS) was developed on the basis of four of these factors. Reliability measures, as well as personality and psychopathological correlations, were determined and discussed.
Advances in the fields of cognitive and affective developmental neuroscience, developmental psychopathology, neurobiology, genetics, and applied behavior analysis have contributed to a more optimistic outcome for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). These advances have led to new methods for early detection and more effective treatments. For the first time, prevention of ASD is plausible. Prevention will entail detecting infants at risk before the full syndrome is present and implementing treatments designed to alter the course of early behavioral and brain development. This article describes a developmental model of risk, risk processes, symptom emergence, and adaptation in ASD that offers a framework for understanding early brain plasticity in ASD and its role in prevention of the disorder.
Children in households reporting the receipt of free or reduced price school meals through the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) are more likely to have negative health outcomes than eligible nonparticipants. Assessing the causal effects of the program is made difficult, however, by the presence of endogenous selection into the program and systematic misreporting of participation status. Using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), we extend and apply partial identification methods to account for these two identification problems in a single unifying framework. Similar to a regression discontinuity design, we introduce a new way to conceptualize the monotone instrumental variable (MIV) assumption using eligibility criteria as monotone instruments. Under relatively weak assumptions, we find evidence that receipt of free and reduced price lunches through the NSLP improves the health outcomes of children.