ABSTRACT

This study investigates the moral judgements that autistic children make in everyday situations. Moral Transgressions (MT) and Faux Pas (FP) stories were compared, in which stories the agent’s morality and intention varied (MT: bad, FP: good), and were divided by the mediator (personal / material). Thirty autistic and 32 neurotypical children answered forced-choice questions. The two groups did not differ significantly when responding to either the MT or the FP questions. In between-group comparisons, the autistic group found difficulties in understanding the MT stories when the action directly affected another person (personal mediator). Comparisons between agent’s morality and intention variables revealed that autistic children judged the morality of the agent in FP stories as severe as in the MT task, even when the agent’s intention was understood. These subtle problems could shed some light on how autistic individuals would judge social situations, from the lack of a robust ToM to difficulties being socially flexible.

摘要

这项研究调查了自闭症儿童在日常情况下做出的道德判断。道德违规（MT）和假假（FP）故事进行了比较，在这些故事中，代理人的道德和意图有所不同（MT：差，FP：好），并由调解员（个人/材料）划分。30名自闭症儿童和32名神经性典型儿童回答了选择题。在回答MT或FP问题时，两组没有显着差异。在小组之间的比较中，当行动直接影响另一个人（个人调解员）时，自闭症小组难以理解MT故事。通过对代理人的道德和意向变量进行比较，可以发现，自闭症儿童判断FP故事中代理人的道德与MT任务中的道德一样严格，即使理解了代理人的意图也是如此。这些细微的问题可能会为自闭症患者如何判断社交情况提供一些启示，