Increased prosocial value orientation in autistic adults.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Social Psychology
• Autism Research

Background:

• Social discounting describes reduced generosity towards less familiar individuals.
• Prior research indicates autistic individuals may exhibit flatter social discounting.
• This suggests potentially higher prosociality towards socially distant others in autism.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the drivers of enhanced prosociality towards socially distant others in autistic adults.
• To differentiate between genuine prosociality and repetitive responding as explanations.
• To replicate and extend previous findings on social discounting in autism.

Main Methods:

• Recruited 37 autistic and 38 non-autistic adults.
• Administered the social value orientation questionnaire to measure prosocial preferences.
• Participants allocated monetary resources across six levels of social distance.

Main Results:

• Replicated previous findings: autistic adults showed greater prosociality towards socially distant others.
• This enhanced generosity was not explained by more repetitive responding in the autistic group.
• Attitudes towards money did not differ between autistic and non-autistic participants.

Conclusions:

• Autism is associated with enhanced prosociality towards socially distant individuals.
• This effect is likely driven by genuine prosocial tendencies, not response biases.
• Differences in fairness norms may underlie increased generosity in autism, warranting further investigation.