Rachel A Clutterbuck’s research while affiliated with University of Bath and other places
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Individual differences in Theory of Mind (ToM)–the ability to understand the mental states of others–are theorised to be predicted by socio-demographic and political factors. However, inconsistent findings on the relationships between various socio-demographic predictors and ToM, as well as a paucity of research on political predictors of ToM, have left a gap in the literature. Using a recently validated self-report measure of ToM in a large sample (N = 4202) we investigated the unique contributions of age, sex, socio-economic status, and political beliefs to ToM in adults. Except for age, all variables were correlated with ToM, but when accounting for the variance of other predictors in statistical analyses, political beliefs was no longer associated with ToM. Dominance analysis revealed that participant sex was the most important predictor of ToM. These findings help to address theoretical discrepancies in the existing literature and inform future methods and directions in social cognition research.
Strengths-based approaches to autism are increasing in research and clinical practice. Such approaches suggest facilitating autistic people to increase the use of their strengths leads to positive outcomes (e.g. improved well-being). However, despite proliferation of strengths-based clinical and educational interventions, these approaches are grounded on several assumptions that remain uninvestigated. Little is known about the specific strengths of autistic people, nor their current knowledge and use of their strengths. Critically, no research has directly tested if autistic people’s strengths knowledge and use is in fact associated with positive outcomes. Conducting an exploratory study, including the first well-powered comparisons of the self-reported strengths, strengths knowledge, and strengths use of matched autistic and non-autistic samples (N = 276), we found that autistic and non-autistic participants reported similar strengths. While autistic people reported lower strengths knowledge and use, strengths use in autism strongly predicted better quality of life, subjective well-being, and lower levels of anxiety, depression, and stress. Thus, strength-based approaches and clinical interventions designed to increase strengths use may pose a valuable method for boosting well-being in autism. However, we suggest such approaches should focus on individuals’ strengths more generally, rather than perceived autism-specific abilities.
Lay abstract
It is often suggested that supporting autistic people to identify and use their strengths will lead to positive outcomes. However, little research has explored if this is true. To date, no research has explored whether autistic people already have knowledge of and use their strengths, nor whether increased strengths knowledge and use is linked to good outcomes, such as a better quality of life, well-being and improved mental health. Comparing large samples of autistic and non-autistic people, this study tested these unanswered questions. We found that autistic and non-autistic people reported similar strengths, but autistic people reported less knowledge and use of their strengths compared to non-autistic people. Importantly however, autistic people who reported using their strengths often had better quality of life, well-being and mental health than autistic people who reported using their strengths less frequently. We, therefore, propose that supporting autistic people to use their strengths more often may be a valuable way to boost well-being in this population.
Murphy et al. (2022) raised concerns regarding the validity of the Four-Item Mentalising Index (FIMI). We wholeheartedly agree with Murphy et al. that there are problems in the social cognition literature hampering research. However, we maintain the FIMI is conceptually grounded in empirical and theoretical research, and that concerns regarding its construct validity are overstated. Drawing on recent research, we also discuss issues concerning the interpretation of discriminant validity analyses and discuss approaches to improve objectivity in future research. Overall, we argue that the FIMI is a conceptually and psychometrically sound measure, which has utility in future social cognition research and clinical practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
The 10-item Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ10) is frequently used to screen for high autistic traits in clinical practice and research. For the past decade, however, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has recommended the use of an incorrect ≥7 cut-off value, instead of the correct ≥6 value specified in the original research on the AQ10. Our inspection of the literature suggests that this discrepancy has proliferated across research, generating confusion over the past decade. After examining use of the AQ10 cut-offs in previous research, we drew on five datasets (overall N = 7612) to empirically test the consequences of applying different AQ10 cut-off values for the interpretation of research. Our analyses showed that a one-point difference in the AQ10 cut-off – the error made in the NICE guidelines – significantly changed the effect sizes of autism-related associations in 3 of the five datasets by up to 59.75% and made the relationships non-significant in two datasets. This demonstrates that the (mis)use of the AQ10 cut-off can be consequential for research, hence we discuss the urgent need to establish and apply appropriate autism screening cut-off values in future research.
Lay abstract:
Anthropomorphism is the tendency to attribute human-like qualities (e.g. thoughts and feelings) to non-human entities (e.g. objects and weather systems). Research by White and Remington (2019) suggested that anthropomorphism is more common in autistic compared to neurotypical adults, which is interesting given that autistic individuals sometimes misunderstand the thoughts and feelings of other people. In this article, we re-examined the link between autism and anthropomorphism in a large sample of adults with varying degrees of autistic traits, with several important methodological advances on previous research. Across two studies, we found that individuals with more autistic traits reported greater anthropomorphic tendencies. As part of these analyses, we had to develop a new, refined measure of anthropomorphism, which showed better reliability and validity than the original measure. This measure will be useful in future autism-related research. Overall, advancing White and Remington's study, these findings help us to better understand individual differences in socially relevant processes, including those that may be enhanced in autism (e.g. anthropomorphism).
Mentalising, also known as "Theory of Mind", is the ability to understand and infer the cognitions of others, such as their perceptions, intentions, and beliefs. Although several tools have been designed to measure mentalising in adults, there exist methodological and practical limitations. Many of the existing measures conflate mentalising with similar constructs (e.g., empathy), and most are lengthy measures that are unsuitable for large population-based studies and clinical practice. These issues are currently hampering clinical and non-clinical investigations into mentalising and related social-cognitive abilities. Drawing on questionnaire measures of social cognition, we conceived a self-report mentalising scale, the Four-Item Mentalising Index (FIMI; Studies 1a and b). The FIMI was developed through a series of studies examining its factor structure and reliability (Studies 2a and b) and by testing its construct validity against a cognitive mentalising task, autistic traits, and comparing scores in autistic and non-autistic people (Studies 3a and b). Together, we demonstrate that the FIMI is a conceptually and methodologically robust tool for measuring mentalising ability in the general population, including autistic and non-autistic people. Future research directions and practical (clinical) applications of the scale are discussed, with a focus on improving understanding and management of (a)typical mentalising ability. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
Karmic belief—the expectation that actions bring about morally congruent outcomes within and across lifetimes—is central to many, particularly Eastern, religions. This research (N = 704) examined whether karmic beliefs and cultural context (predominantly Christian Americans and Hindu Indians) moderated the indirect effect of learning about others’ morally congruent or incongruent negative outcomes on immanent justice reasoning (causally attributing misfortune to someone’s prior misdeeds) through perceived deservingness. Results revealed that the indirect effect of congruency on immanent justice attributions via deservingness was stronger for people higher in karmic beliefs, because they strengthened the effect of congruency on immanent justice attributions and the relationship between deservingness and immanent justice attributions. The indirect effect of congruency on immanent justice attributions through deservingness was also stronger in the United States. These results highlight the role that karmic beliefs play in how people reason about the causes of others’ fortunes and misfortunes.
The 10-item Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ10) is a self-report questionnaire used in clinical and research settings as a diagnostic screening tool for autism in adults. The AQ10 is also increasingly being used to quantify trait autism along a unitary dimension and correlated against performance on other psychological/medical tasks. However, its psychometric properties have yet to be examined when used in this way. By analysing AQ10 data from a large non-clinical sample of adults ( n = 6,595), we found that the AQ10 does not have a unifactorial factor structure, and instead appears to have several factors. The AQ10 also had poor internal reliability. Taken together, whilst the AQ10 has important clinical utility in screening for diagnosable autism, it may not be a psychometrically robust measure when administered in non-clinical samples from the general population. Therefore, we caution against its use as a measure of trait autism in future research.
... These findings on age and sex agree with Clutterbuck et al. 's (2021) findings for the original English FIMI. The sex differences found in the present study are also in line with very recent findings of Clutterbuck et al. (2023) who found that women reported higher FIMI scores than men. Moreover, controlling for sex did not change how the FIMI-G was related to the other applied measures. ...
... Educators believed that strengths-based approaches were important for facilitating inclusive practices for autistic youth in high schools, perceiving that strengths-based approaches enhanced the education journey and learning experiences of autistic students whilst also benefiting the broader school system. Our findings also contribute to a growing body of literature that has also identified positive impacts of strengths-based approaches for autistic individuals, which have been associated with better employment, education, and independent living outcomes for autistic students (Lee et al., 2023;Taylor et al., 2023). ...
... The DEP is being used to refer to various constructs (i.e., jingle), as well as different concepts referred to as double empathy (i.e., jangle). This problem is not unique to the DEP and reflects a wider problem in social cognition research (e.g., Clutterbuck et al., 2021Clutterbuck et al., , 2022Murphy et al., 2022;Quesque & Rossetti, 2020), including the empathy literature specifically (see Olderbak & Wilhelm, 2020, for detailed discussion). Across a range of studies, the term "DEP" is used, despite explicitly describing and measuring a range of entirely different social cognitive constructs. ...
... Waldren et al. (2021) recently reported that the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) had, for almost a decade, recommended the incorrect AQ10 cutoff value to screen for autism (≥7 instead of ≥6, based on Allison et al., 2012). This error has generated confusion among researchers and clinicians who administer the AQ10 in their work, with evidence of several studies (e.g., Payne et al., 2020;Rahman et al., 2021) using the incorrect cutoff value (see Waldren et al., 2022). ...
... Surprisingly, we found that autistic children showed more empathic concern in the No-Pain condition. This finding is in line with the evidence of the increased tendencies to anthropomorphize in autistic people and adults with high autistic traits, who feel sad when they see an object being damaged (e.g., Caruana et al., 2021;Clutterbuck et al., 2022;Negri et al., 2019;). In the current study, autistic children might anthropomorphize the objects and attribute pain to them (e.g., the cucumber, leaves, and timber being cut in our stimuli) and thus feel sorry for these objects. ...
... The first conclusion accepted the construct validity and reliability of the AQ10 as endorsed by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (2021), according to which the AQ10 identifies ten "red flags" as potential indicators of ASD and proposes the cut-off point of 'six or more' red flags as the threshold for referral for professional assessment. For the sake of clarity, it is helpful to note that within the extant literature this threshold has sometimes been misreported as 'more than six' red flags (see Waldren et al., 2021). According to this criterion, 8.6% of Anglican clergy serving in Wales recorded six or more red flags. ...
... Autistic participants (87 female, 89 male, sex at birth), aged 18-63, had a clinical diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder from an independent U.K. or U.S.-based health care professional according to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems criteria (APA, 2013; World Health Organization, 2019). Participants provided detailed information about their diagnosis, diagnosing clinician(s), and diagnosis location, consistent with previous research recruiting large autistic samples online (e.g., Clutterbuck et al., 2021;Taylor et al., 2022). Diagnoses were confirmed multiple times during the screening process and within the study. ...
... As for the things that are done for the benefit of others, out of kindness and love, without thinking of reward, or to worship God, they are all acts of kindness and piety, which will bring about elevation or good luck. Evil karma comes to humans when it hurts someone who is overcome with fear, someone who is sick, someone who places their trust in us, or someone who has devoted himself entirely to spiritual practice (Taylor et al., 2022). In Eastern tradition, if someone has done something wrong and truly regrets it, the karma for that action can be minimized or burned in the fire of regret. ...
... The second conclusion, in line with earlier work reported by Jia et al. (2019), Lundin et al. (2019), and Taylor et al. (2020), questioned the internal consistency reliability of the AQ10 that in this sample recorded an alpha coefficient of 0.57 and included an item recording a negative correlation with the sum of the other nine items. With the removal of this rogue item, Francis et al. (2024) proposed a shorter AQ9 that recorded an improved alpha coefficient of 0.64 and recommended the use of this revised instrument in further analysis of their data. ...
