Moral foundations in autistic people and people with systemizing minds.
Yeshaya David M Greenberg, Rosemary Holt, Carrie Allison and 5 others
PMID 38745228WHAT IT FOUND
Autistic people scored similarly to typical people on moral foundations, including Care.
They endorsed Fairness over Care more often than typical females. Systemizing types were more likely to identify as libertarians. These are self-reported attitudes, not observed behavior.
Key findings
01Autistic and typical people did not differ significantly on the Care moral foundation in either sex.
02Autistic females scored higher on Fairness than typical females, while autistic males did not differ significantly from typical males.
03Participants with systemizing cognitive types were significantly more likely to self-identify as libertarians than those with empathizing types.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The study relied on self-report questionnaires, not observed moral behavior. Participants were internet-savvy volunteers, limiting generalizability to autistic people with intellectual disabilities or learning difficulties. Dataset 1 did not assess political identification, and Dataset 2 did not include autistic participants, so direct links between autism and politics were not tested. The study did not screen for personality disorders like psychopathy, which have different empathy profiles. Findings were analyzed separately by sex, but the large non-clinical sample was not representative of the general population in terms of clinical diagnoses.
Declared interests
Funding came from multiple sources including the Wellcome Trust, Innovative Medicines Initiative, EU Horizon 2020, EFPIA, and Autism Speaks. The authors did not declare specific personal conflicts of interest in the provided text, but the involvement of Autism Speaks and pharmaceutical industry associations (EFPIA) is noted in the funding list.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret these moral foundation scores as evidence of different ethical behavior or competence in clinical settings. The study measures self-reported attitudes in a specific questionnaire format, not how patients actually act or make decisions in real-world therapy.