Organizational benefits of neurodiversity: Preliminary findings on autism and the bystander effect

Abstract

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.

Dialectical behaviour therapy outcomes for adolescents with autism spectrum conditions compared to those without: findings from a seven-year service evaluation

“…Generally, the flexibility of DBT allows for neuro-affirmative adaptations to be made throughout treatment via collaboration between client and clinician, dependent on client needs (e.g. adapting exposure tasks to accommodate sensory sensitivity, including neurodiversity within the biosocial formulation model; see Chapman and Botha, 2022;Hartman et al, 2023 for general neuro-affirmative recommendations). Aspects of the DBT model may already be amenable to some neurotypes (e.g.…”

An ethical advantage of autistic employees in the workplace

“…The present study, to our knowledge, is the first to explicitly compare autistic and nonautistic adults on measures of moral disengagement. We predict that moral disengagement scores will be lower in autistic than nonautistic participants, and that variations in the level of moral disengagement will moderate previously reported differences between autistic and nonautistic employees with regards to susceptibility to the bystander effect ( Hartman et al, 2023 ).…”

“…The two dependent variables considered in this report (intervention likelihood and degree of influence of others) were measured using the Organizational Scenarios Survey . This survey was developed to assess how people navigate workplace situations in which they witness practices or actions that may result in issues like inefficiencies, inequities, quality problems, or ethical concerns ( Hartman et al, 2023 ). Participants were presented with four short scenarios depicting workplace situations, each highlighting either an ethical problem or an operational inefficiency.…”

“…Recent examples include the Boeing 737 Max fraud conspiracy, the Purdue Pharma opioid crisis, the Siemens bribery scandal, and Volkswagen’s “diesel-gate.” In all these cases, many individuals (hundreds) participated in the unethical acts, and an even larger number (thousands) were aware of the unethical behavior yet did nothing to stop it ( Bazerman, 2022 ). Recently, it has been reported that autistic employees are more likely to do something or say something when they see something wrong happening in the organization ( Hartman et al, 2023 ). By reporting problems, autistic employees may contribute to the introduction of innovations and improvements in organizational processes and effectiveness that result in superior performance.…”

“…This difference could stem from their early experiences as young children, during which they did not learn the culturally supplied explanations for behavior typically acquired during this crucial period of neuroplasticity ( Buon et al, 2013 ). As a result, in comparison to nonautistic controls, autistic participants are (1) less affected by the “sunk cost” bias, i.e., they are more likely to consider only current and future costs (avoidable costs) rather than irrecoverable (sunk) costs when making decisions ( Fujino et al, 2017 ; Rogge, 2021 ), (2) less susceptible to “framing effects,” i.e., they are less likely to favor one of two mathematically identical options because of the way they are framed as a gain versus loss ( De Martino et al, 2008 ; Shah et al, 2016 ), (3) more deliberative and less intuitive or emotional when reasoning ( Brosnan et al, 2014 ; Levin et al, 2015 ; Brosnan et al, 2016 ; Farmer et al, 2017 ; Brosnan and Ashwin, 2023 ), (4) less susceptible to the “conjunction fallacy,” i.e., the tendency to favor multiple specific conditions over a single underlying cause because specific conditions seem more probable due to the salience of representative information ( Morsanyi et al, 2010 ), (5) less likely to make moral judgments about an action based on an analysis of a person’s intention or character and more likely to rely on negative outcomes of the action ( Moran et al, 2011 ; Komeda et al, 2016 ), (6) less susceptible to social influence and reputation management ( Frith and Frith, 2011 ; Izuma et al, 2011 ), (7) less biased when updating self-referential beliefs ( Kuzmanovic et al, 2019 ), (8) more likely to accept offers that are considered unfair but economically beneficial ( Wang et al, 2019 ; Jin et al, 2020 ); (9) less susceptible to implicit bias based on race and gender ( Kirchner et al, 2012 ; Birmingham et al, 2015 ); and (10) less likely to espouse false beliefs as bystanders about whether they were influenced by the presence of others ( Hartman et al, 2023 ). Taken together, these studies suggest that autistic individuals are less susceptible to cognitive biases and exhibit more rational and bias-free processing of information which may be an advantage in ethical decision making.…”