The Understanding of Wrongfulness by Autistic Individuals in the Criminal Justice System.
Spell out intent and harm when you question autistic adults about possible crimes.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Kernahan et al. (2025) asked 40 autistic and 40 non-autistic adults to read short crime stories.
Each story left out either the villain’s intent, the harm caused, or both.
Participants rated how "wrong" the act was and explained why.
What they found
Autistic adults gave lower wrongfulness scores when clues were missing.
When the researchers added clear statements about intent and harm, the gap shrank but did not close.
The autistic group still scored about 15 % lower on average.
How this fits with other research
Akechi et al. (2018) found no group difference in moral judgment when intent and harm were fully spelled out.
Molly’s team shows that tiny omissions reopen the gap, extending the earlier work.
Chapple et al. (2021) reported that autistic adults gain social insight from reading fiction, which seems opposite.
The contradiction fades when you see the tasks: self-reported reading benefits versus real-time legal judgments with missing facts.
Why it matters
Police interviews and court testimony often leave intent or harm unstated.
Add one sentence that spells out both: "He meant to hurt her and she broke her arm."
This small edit can help autistic witnesses or defendants give clearer moral answers and reduce misinterpretation.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
PURPOSE: This study investigated the impact autism and difficulties with theory of mind (ToM) have on one's ability to reason about the wrongfulness of criminal behaviour, and whether this relationship was affected when explicit information was given about the intentionality behind, and harmful outcome of a behaviour. It was hypothesised that when intent and harm information were absent, ToM would mediate the autism and reasoning ability relationship. METHOD: The ToM and reasoning ability of 57 non-autistic and 55 autistic adult participants was assessed. To test reasoning ability, participants read criminal scenarios with intent and harm information absent or present and reasoned why the behaviour was or was not 'wrong'. Their responses were then scored based on the level of information they provided about intent and harm in their reasoning. RESULTS: Overall, autistic participants scored lower on the reasoning task than non-autistic participants. When intent and harm information were absent, evidence for the group difference remained, albeit weaker, and ToM did not mediate this relationship. The gap in reasoning ability between groups was smaller when harm information was included, compared to when it was absent. CONCLUSION: The lower reasoning ability of autistic compared to non-autistic participants suggests that autistic individuals may not consider the intentionality or potential harmfulness when engaging in illegal activity or confronted with wrongful situations. However, if informed about the intent and potential harm, the difficulties in reasoning experienced by autistic people are reduced, suggesting that anticipating the potential outcome of behaviour may not be intuitive for some.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2025 · doi:10.1007/s10803-021-04885-1