No abstract

Although the core characteristics associated with autistic traits are impaired social interactions, there are few studies examining how autistic traits translate into prosocial behaviour in daily life. The current study explored the effect of autistic traits on prosocial behaviour and the mediating role of multimodal empathy (trait empathy and state empathic concern). The results showed that autistic traits reduced prosocial behaviour directly and indirectly through complex mediation by multimodal empathy. The findings revealed the internal mechanism of autistic traits impeding prosocial behaviour and expanded our understandings of social behaviour in autism spectrum conditions (ASCs) and autistic traits in the general population. Furthermore, the results have implications for social adaptability interventions for individuals with ASCs and high levels of autistic traits.

Background: Although empathy has always been considered to be impaired in individuals with autism spectrum conditions (ASCs), the relevant findings have been inconsistent. The present meta-analysis aims to determine which empathy components are impaired and how culture, gender, and age moderate such empathy impairment.Methods: By using “Autism,” “Asperger Syndrome,” “Empathy,” and related Chinese synonyms as keywords, we searched the databases of Weipu, Wanfang, CNKI, Web of Science, Science Direct, SpringerLink, and Elsevier through “subject” and “keyword” searches. We also conducted a manual search according to the references. In total, 51 studies from Eastern and Western countries were included in this meta-analysis, which comprised 144 independent effects, 2,095 individuals with ASCs and 2,869 controls without ASCs. For the retrieved data, Hedge's g was taken as the quantitative measure of effect, and CMA V2.0 software was used for publication bias tests (by using Rosenthal's Classic Failsafe-N and Egger's methods), heterogeneity tests (by using a Q-test, I2-test, and H-test) and a moderating effect test (by using a univariate regression model).Results: The results showed that the empathy impairment evident in individuals with ASCs is component specific; that is, trait-cognitive empathy, trait-empathic concern, state-cognitive empathy, and state-empathic concern are impaired, whereas state-empathic accuracy remains intact, and trait-empathic accuracy is superior to the trait-empathic accuracy in neurotypical individuals. The univariate regression model showed that gender moderates the impairment of the trait-empathic concern, trait-empathic accuracy, and state-cognitive empathy in autistic individuals and that age moderates the impairment of the trait-cognitive empathy, trait-empathic accuracy, state-empathic concern, and state-empathic accuracy in autistic individuals. However, culture does not moderate any empathy components (trait-cognitive empathy, trait-empathic concern, or state-cognitive empathy) involved in the present meta-analysis.Conclusions: These findings contribute to ending the controversy over the empathic integrity of individuals with ASCs and shed some light on future research about the empathy impairment of autistic individuals. More specifically, subsequent studies should distinguish specific empathy components and consider the role of gender and age when demonstrating empathy impairment in individuals with ASCs. Moreover, related studies based on Asian collectivist cultural samples and female samples should be further enriched.

Impairments in social cognition are believed contribute to disability, particularly for disorders characterized by difficulties in social interaction. There has been little transdiagnostic investigation of this across social cognition domains in young adults. A total of 199 young adults diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD; N = 53), early psychosis (EP; N = 51), and social anxiety disorder (SAD; N = 64) were compared against neurotypical controls (NT; N = 31) on a battery of lower and higher-order and self-report social cognition measures. For both ASD and EP, participants showed impaired performance on all lower-order emotion recognition tasks and one higher-order social cognition test. Self-reports of empathy were reduced in all clinical groups and particularly in ASD. For SAD, despite showing no objective social cognition impairment, self-reported empathy was reduced to the same level as EP. Discriminant analysis revealed that self-reported empathy and lower-order emotion recognition tests provide best capacity to differentiate groups. Regressions predicting disability revealed depression as the strongest predictor across all disability measures. Empathy provided additional predictive value for social disability and social interaction anxiety. Overall, results support a similar social-cognitive development profile across ASD and EP. While self-reported empathy differentiated between groups, discrepancy between objective social cognition test performance and self-reported empathy in the SAD group suggests probable threat-related self-monitoring report biases that likely further influence all group outcomes. As depression and empathy were the most important predictors of disability, regardless of diagnostic group, research is required to explore targeted interventions for difficulties in these domains to reduce disability.

The role of social capital in predicting knowledge sharing has received considerable attention in research. However, very limited research has investigated the mechanisms mediating this relationship. To address this important gap in knowledge, the purpose of this study was to examine employee vigor as a psychological mechanism mediating the effect of social capital on tacit knowledge-sharing intention. Data collected from 209 employees in multiple industries in China were empirically tested by using structural equation modeling analysis. The results show that social capital positively affects emotional energy, which then positively influences the intention to share tacit knowledge. However, neither physical strength nor cognitive liveliness mediates the path through which social capital impacts tacit knowledge-sharing intention. Our research findings unpack the impact mechanism of social capital on tacit knowledge-sharing intention, and provide practical insights into how to use social capital to facilitate employees to share tacit knowledge in organizations.