Should I trust you? Autistic traits predict reduced appearance-based trust decisions

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychology
• Social Cognition

Background:

• Facial trustworthiness impressions typically guide social decisions, like financial lending in Trust Games.
• Autistic individuals show a dissociation, failing to use facial trustworthiness cues despite forming them.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if this dissociation extends to neurotypical men with high autistic traits.
• To examine the relationship between autistic traits and the use of facial trustworthiness impressions.

Main Methods:

• Forty-six neurotypical men completed a multi-turn Trust Game.
• Participants also underwent facial trustworthiness impression tasks, the Autism-Spectrum Quotient, and Theory of Mind assessments.

Main Results:

• Autistic traits did not affect the formation of facial trustworthiness impressions.
• Higher levels of autistic traits negatively predicted the utilization of these impressions in trust decisions.

Conclusions:

• The dissociation between forming and using facial trustworthiness impressions is present in the broader autism phenotype.
• Autistic traits contribute to individual differences in using facial cues for behavior, potentially reflecting rational decision-making given cue validity.