Moral judgment in adults with autism spectrum disorders |
| |
Authors: | Zalla Tiziana Barlassina Luca Buon Marine Leboyer Marion |
| |
Institution: | aInstitut Jean Nicod, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Département d’Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France;bDipartimento di Filosofia, Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy;cLaboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Département d’Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France;dINSERM U 955, IMRB, University Paris Est Creteil, AP-HP, Henri Mondor-Albert Chenevier Hospitals, Department of Psychiatry, Fondation FondaMental, French National Science Foundation, Creteil, France |
| |
Abstract: | The ability of a group of adults with high functioning autism (HFA) or Asperger Syndrome (AS) to distinguish moral, conventional and disgust transgressions was investigated using a set of six transgression scenarios, each of which was followed by questions about permissibility, seriousness, authority contingency and justification. The results showed that although individuals with HFA or AS (HFA/AS) were able to distinguish affect-backed norms from conventional affect-neutral norms along the dimensions of permissibility, seriousness and authority-dependence, they failed to distinguish moral and disgust transgressions along the seriousness dimension and were unable to provide appropriate welfare-based moral justifications. Moreover, they judged conventional and disgust transgressions to be more serious than did the comparison group, and the correlation analysis revealed that the seriousness rating was related to their ToM impairment. We concluded that difficulties providing appropriate moral justifications and evaluating the seriousness of transgressions in individuals with HFA/AS may be explained by an impaired cognitive appraisal system that, while responsive to rule violations, fails to use relevant information about the agent’s intentions and the affective impact of the action outcome in conscious moral reasoning. |
| |
Keywords: | Cognitive empathy Rule transgressions Disgust Theory of mind High functioning autism |
本文献已被 ScienceDirect PubMed 等数据库收录! |
|