Development of Moral Judgments in Impersonal and Personal Dilemmas in Autistic Spectrum Disorders from Childhood to Late Adolescence.
Melanie Labusch, Manuel Perea, Rosa Sahuquillo-Leal and 4 others
PMID 36436146WHAT IT FOUND
In children and adolescents with ASD, choosing to harm a person to save others in a personal moral dilemma did not decline with age as it did in typical peers.
They also rated these choices as more appropriate while feeling less calm.
Key findings
01The chance of a utilitarian response in the personal dilemma fell sharply with age in typical participants but not in participants with ASD.
02After a utilitarian personal-dilemma response, participants with ASD rated their choice as more appropriate but felt less calm than typical participants.
03In the ASD group, social interaction difficulty scores were related to the chance of a utilitarian response in the personal dilemma.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The study compared different children at different ages at one time point, so it did not follow the same child over time. It used only the lever and footbridge dilemmas, so it may not show how children respond to other moral situations. Only children with verbal IQ of at least 80, without other psychiatric diagnoses or cognition-affecting medication, were included, so it may not apply to all children with ASD. The ASD group were out-patients from a psychiatry department, and typical children came from two local schools, so the groups may not represent all children. The age effect in the personal dilemma had a very wide range, from 1.62 to 115, so the estimate is imprecise.
Declared interests
Funders named were Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Fundación Alicia Koplowitz, and Universitat de Valencia. The supplied text does not list author conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read these moral dilemma responses as proof that ASD causes impaired empathy or as a therapy target. The study was cross-sectional, used only the lever and footbridge dilemmas, and found an association with social interaction scores, not a treatment effect.