Autism does not Dictate Children’s Lack of Sharing in a Prosocial Choice Test

Townsend, L B; Robeson, Audrey; Vonk, Jennifer; Rohrbeck, Kristin L.

doi:10.1007/s10803-020-04691-1

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 42 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…However, the majority of the literature found no association between ASD or autism symptoms and prosocial behavior, indicating that ASD does not impact one's general propensity toward altruistic values or behavior (Bethlehem et al, 2017; Chiu et al, 2008; Downs & Smith, 2004; Hill et al, 2004; Izuma et al, 2011; Sally & Hill, 2006; Townsend et al, 2021). These mixed results might be partly due to the reliance on diverse paradigms to measure prosocial behavior.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using simple economic games to assess social orienting and prosocial behavior in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder

Hase

Haynes²,

Hasler

2023

Autism Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Deficits in socio‐emotional reciprocity, in prosocial behavior and in developing social relationships are diagnostic criteria of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), usually assessed by self‐report or observation. Simple social experiments developed by behavioral economists allow for quantification of ASD‐related social behavior. In this study, we used such experiments to compare social‐economic decision‐making between ASD adolescents and neurotypical controls. Precisely, we analyzed social orienting and prosocial behavior in 17 adolescents with ASD (Asperger syndrome) and 24 matched neurotypical adolescents. We used a two‐condition distribution game (possibility of punishment by fellow player versus no such possibility) and an impunity game to examine social orienting (distribution game) and prosocial behavior (both games). Participants with ASD exhibited less social orienting in the distribution game (p = 0.03, d = −0.61). In addition, there was a trend for ASD participants to behave in a more prosocial way than neurotypical participants in the impunity game (p = 0.08, d = 0.60), which was not the case in the no‐punishment condition of the distribution game (p = 0.35, r = 0.17). These results demonstrate the potential of simple economic games to capture reduced social orienting in ASD. The unexpected finding of more prosocial behavior in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder than in neurotypical controls adds to the complexity of previously published results. We recommend meta‐analytic efforts to determine average effect sizes across studies and elucidate the conditions for prosocial behavior in ASD to occur.

show abstract