Egocentric biases and atypical generosity in autistic individuals.
Autistic adults may give more money in games because egocentric interference locks them into generous rules rather than selfish ones.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Tei et al. (2019) asked autistic and non-autistic adults to play money-sharing games.
The team also gave quick perspective-taking tests to see how fast and how often each person let their own view slip in.
All tasks were done on a computer in one lab visit.
What they found
Autistic adults gave away more money than the control group, even though they took longer to judge the other person’s view.
The more their own view intruded, the more generous they became—opposite of the usual selfish pattern.
Speed was slower but steadier, showing rigid rather than flexible decisions.
How this fits with other research
Hsieh et al. (2014) used eye-tracking in the same adult-ASD group and found slow, patchy perspective reading for repair scenes.
Shisei adds money choices and shows the delay can end in extra giving, not less.
Armstrong et al. (2014) showed autistic adults struggle to mentally rotate their own body.
Together the three papers map one root: egocentric interference lingers, but the final social move can swing over-compensating instead of under-compensating.
Hobson (1984) saw no egocentric gap in autistic kids on a visuospatial task, yet Shisei finds one in adults with cash.
The gap likely blooms in complex social-value settings, not simple left-right viewpoints.
Why it matters
If you run social-skills groups, do not read low eye contact or slow answers as lack of caring.
The client may need extra time to shift perspective, then may give too much.
Teach flexible bargaining scripts and self-monitoring stops so generosity stays safe and balanced.
Get CEUs on This Topic — Free
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ on-demand CEUs including ethics, supervision, and clinical topics like this one. Plus a new live CEU every Wednesday.
Add a 10-second wait rule before money or token exchanges and prompt: ‘Check—how much do you keep for yourself?’
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Individuals with autism spectrum conditions (ASCs) often experience difficulty and confusion in acknowledging others' perspectives and arguably exhibit egocentricity. However, whether this egocentricity necessarily results in selfish behavior during social situations remains a matter of debate. To study this relationship, we used computerized visuospatial perspective-taking task (VPT) and social-discounting task (SDT), derived from cognitive psychology and behavioral economics, and examined egocentric and other-oriented judgments in participants with ASCs (mean age 29.0 ± 4.2 years) and a group of matched typically developing (TD) controls (30.8 ± 8.5). The response time in VPT showed altered perspective-taking in the ASCs group compared with the TD group that involved in enhanced self-other intrusion and condition-insensitive response. Regardless of self/other perspective judgments, responses were relatively slower and consistent in duration in the ASCs group compared with the TD group. Social discounting was attenuated rather than steep discounting in the ASCs group. Their discounting was comparatively more consistent, irrespective of the task condition (i.e., self-other closeness-level). In effect, ASCs group exhibited more generous decisions than the TD group in this task. Finally, those with more egocentric perspective intrusion in VPT paradoxically showed more generous behaviors in SDT in the ASCs group. Our findings suggest that having ASCs does not always exhibit selfish behavior during interpersonal communication. Reduced flexibility in distinguishing self/other perspective and shifting decision-rules might account for this unique relationship between egocentricity and apparently generous behaviors. These results extend the recent suggestion that more careful attention should be paid to the idea of egocentricity in individuals with ASCs. Autism Res 2019. © 2019 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: We aimed to examine whether seeing the world from another person's point of view and being generous toward other people are related in autistic and nonautistic people. We used a visual perspective-taking task and a social task in which individuals made decisions about how to divide a sum of money with others. Our results suggest that being autistic does not always make someone bad at seeing the world from another's viewpoint, and that autistic people may make fairer social decisions toward unfamiliar people because of lower bias.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2019 · doi:10.1002/aur.2130