Alexithymic But Not Autistic Traits Impair Prosocial Behavior.
Alexander Lischke, Harald J Freyberger, Hans J Grabe and 2 others
PMID 34184144WHAT IT FOUND
In healthy adults, higher alexithymia scores linked to less prosocial behavior in a resource allocation task.
Autistic traits showed no such link. This suggests that difficulties identifying emotions, rather than autistic traits themselves, may drive reduced cooperation in this experimental setting.
Key findings
01Alexithymic traits were negatively associated with prosocial behavior, whereas autistic traits were not.
02In regression models, alexithymic traits accounted for a substantial proportion of prosocial behavior, while autistic traits did not.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study used healthy individuals with broadly distributed traits, not diagnosed autistic individuals. The findings may not generalize to clinical populations. Prosocial behavior was measured via a hypothetical computer task, not real-world social interactions. The sample size for main analyses was 67, which may limit the detection of smaller effects. Cross-sectional design cannot establish causality between traits and behavior.
Declared interests
Funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and MSH Medical School Hamburg. No specific conflicts of interest declared by authors.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume this proves autistic individuals lack prosocial behavior. The study found no link between autistic traits and prosocial behavior in healthy adults, but it did not test diagnosed autistic individuals. Furthermore, a lack of correlation in a hypothetical computer task does not equate to a lack of social skills or empathy in real-world clinical settings.