Moral and Social Reasoning in Autism Spectrum Disorders

Abstract

This study compared moral and social reasoning in individuals with and without autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Ten familiar schoolyard transgressions were shown to 18 participants with and 18 participants without ASD. They judged the appropriateness of the behavior and explained their judgments. Analysis of the rationales revealed that participants with typical development used significantly more abstract rules than participants with ASD, who provided more nonspecific condemnations of the behaviors. Both groups judged social conventional transgressions to be more context-bound than moral transgressions, with this distinction more pronounced in typically developing individuals, who also provided significantly more examples of situations in which the depicted behaviors would be acceptable. The educational implications of these findings for individuals with ASD are discussed.

‘I am who I am’: Reputation concerns in adolescents on the autism spectrum

“…Even if social rules can be explicitly learnt, autistic adolescents may still find it difficult to keep track of what may constitute a cool reputation. Previous research has shown that autistic children can have knowledge of social rules but are less flexible than typical children in applying social rules during moral reasoning (Shulman, Guberman, Shiling & Bauminger, 2012;Brewer et al, in press). Autistic adolescents and LSAs reported that coping with unpredictability was a challenging aspect of everyday life.…”

Divergent roles of autistic and alexithymic traits in utilitarian moral judgments in adults with autism

“…Despite their social impairments, both children and adults with autism still manage to acquire knowledge about normative canon consisting of appropriateness of various moral behaviours 10,11 . For example, they can properly distinguish between moral norms that relate to suffering in victims from social conventions that are context-bound societal rules [7][8][9][10] . Although neurotypical individuals justify such distinction by referring to considerations about emotional consequences for the victim, the justifications provided by autistics tend to lack such empathic discourse and involve more rule-based rationale 9,10,72,73 .…”

“…For example, they can properly distinguish between moral norms that relate to suffering in victims from social conventions that are context-bound societal rules [7][8][9][10] . Although neurotypical individuals justify such distinction by referring to considerations about emotional consequences for the victim, the justifications provided by autistics tend to lack such empathic discourse and involve more rule-based rationale 9,10,72,73 . It is possible that in the absence of recourse to strong moral intuitions, autistics developmentally acquire compensatory strategies 70 that rely on spared intellectual abilities; indeed research in moral development showing that children with intellectual disabilities lag behind their typically developing peers in terms of moral reasoning 118 provides circumstantial evidence for this claim.…”

“…hitting others) and conventional transgressions (characterized by infraction of normative prohibitions but with no consequence for others' welfare; e.g. talking out of turn) is substantially intact in children and adults with ASD [7][8][9][10] . These studies underscore that ASD population (both children and adults) can distinguish between intentional good and bad actions and have preserved moral knowledge 11,12 .…”

Moral cognition in schizophrenia

“…For example, irrespective of ToM impairments, when presented with simple transgressions, children with ASD make similar distinctions between moral and conventional transgressions (Blair, 1996) and moral judgements to typically developing children (Leslie, Mallon, & Dicorcia, 2006). However, individuals with ASD are more likely to explain the wrongness of moral transgressions via reference to rules rather than the welfare of victims and are also less likely to incorporate information about intention into their moral judgements of more complex moral transgressions, for example, by indicating that harmful accidents are worse than less harmful intentional acts (Grant, Boucher, Riggs, & Grayson, 2005;Moran et al, 2011;Shulman, Guberman, Shiling, & Bauminger, 2012;Zalla, Barlassina, Buon, & Leboyer, 2011).…”